UC-NRLF 


It, 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 
1875-1900 


SAMUEL  L.   CLEMENS 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

1875-1900 


BY 

GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 

Author  of  "  Union  Portraits,"  *'  Confederate  Portraits 
**  Portraits  of  Women,"  etc. 

With  Illustrations 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

Sfje  aattorgfte  $«**  Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  1921,  AND  1922,  BY  THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  IQ20  AND  192 1,  BY  THE  NORTH  AMERICAN  REVIEW  CORPORATION 

COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


FOURTH  DIPEESSION,  OCTOBER,  IQ23 


CAMBRIDGE  •  MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED  IN  THE  U.S.A. 


TO 
GARLAND  GREEVER 


BERNADILLE 
C  'est  ce  que  I  'on  appelle  le  cceur  humain. 

MARGOT 
Le  caur  humain  ? 

BERNADILLE 
fa  ne  devrait  pas  etre  comme  $a,  et  c'est  comme  qa. 

COQUEBERT 
Le  philosophe  s'en  etonne. 

BERNADILLE 

Le  moraliste  s'en  afflige  — 17  s'en  afflige,  le  moraliste!  mais 
c'est  tout  de  meme  comme  $a. 

MEILHAC  AND  HALEVY 


PREFACE 

THIS  group  of  portraits  is  the  first  of  a  series  in  which  I 
hope  to  cover  American  history,  proceeding  backwards 
with  four  volumes  on  the  nineteenth  century,  two  on 
the  eighteenth,  and  one  on  the  seventeenth.  My  inten- 
tion is  to  include  representative  figures  in  all  the  varied 
lines  of  life,  statesmen  and  men  of  action,  writers, 
artists,  preachers,  scholars,  professional  men,  and  men 
prominent  in  the  business  world.  Among  the  numerous 
difficulties  of  such  an  undertaking,  not  the  least  is  that 
of  entering  into  the  special  achievements  of  all  these 
distinguished  persons.  To  judge  what  they  accom- 
plished, it  would  be  necessary  to  be  expert  in  their 
different  pursuits.  But  I  am  concerned  with  their  souls 
and  deal  with  their  work  only  as  their  souls  are  illus- 
trated in  it. 

I  am  aware  that  in  the  present  volume  I  have  not 
carried  out  my  aim  so  fully  as  I  could  wish.  There  are 
too  many  writers  and  artists.  Elaine  and  Cleveland  go 
far  to  restore  the  balance  with  practical  life.  And 
among  the  literary  and  artistic  figures  there  is  an 
ample  variety  and  richness  of  contrast.  But  I  should 
like  to  have  included  a  man  of  pure  science,  and 
especially  one  of  the  men  of  large  business  capacity  who 
are  so  typically  American.  What  has  balked  me  has 
been  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  satisfactory  material. 
With  literary  men  such  material  is  always  abundant. 
Politicians  have  plenty  of  friends  —  or  enemies  —  to 
record  their  experiences,  if  they  do  not  do  it  themselves. 

ix 


PREFACE 

But  the  man  of  science  is  apt  to  be  expressed  wholly  in 
his  scientific  investigation,  and  the  man  of  business 
lives  his  work  and  does  not  write  it.  I  hope,  however, 
to  return  at  a  later  period  to  the  closing  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and  develop  some  of  the  striking 
figures  who  have  teased  my  curiosity  without  satisfy- 
ing it. 

There  are  two  drawbacks  to  any  successful  portrayal 
of  one's  contemporaries.  The  first  is  that  it  is  pecu- 
liarly difficult  to  clear  one's  impression  of  prejudice. 
One  can  survey  great  persons  of  a  hundred  years  ago 
with  a  fair  amount  of  detachment  from  partisan  views 
and  personal  sympathies.  But  men  we  have  known,  or 
whose  friends  we  have  known,  come  before  us  with  a 
cloud  of  secondary  associations  which  tend  to  confuse 
the  fundamental  spiritual  issues.  We  are  inclined  to 
please  somebody,  or  to  spare  somebody,  or  to  annoy 
somebody.  Even  the  coolest  and  most  impartial  find  it 
hard  to  escape  such  influences.  Sainte-Beuve  himself, 
so  broad  and  moderate  in  dealing  with  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  is  obviously  unjust  and  un- 
reasonable with  many  of  the  great  writers  of  his  own 
day. 

Again,  the  study  of  contemporaries  is  complicated 
by  the  constant  appearance  of  new  material.  One 
examines  every  existing  document  with  the  utmost 
care  and,  alas,  makes  up  one's  mind.  Then  new  records, 
new  letters,  new  analyses,  are  published,  and  one  has 
to  unmake  it,  or  reconsider  the  making,  and  one  is 
never  sure  that  one  is  doing  it  fairly.  To  take  a  striking 
instance.  My  portrait  of  Mark  Twain  was  completed 

x 


PREFACE 

before  I  read  Mr.  Van  Wyck  Brooks's  "Ordeal  of 
Mark  Twain."  I  endeavored  to  master  Mr.  Brooks's 
point  of  view.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  did  so,  and  that, 
while  I  recognized  its  brilliancy  and  ingenuity,  it  did 
not  essentially  affect  my  own  original  conception.  But 
I  shall  never  be  sure  that,  if  I  had  read  Mr.  Brooks 
first,  my  portrait  would  not  have  been  different  —  and 
better. 

Another  experience  of  this  nature  has  occurred  with 
Henry  Adams.  My  study,  founded  on  the  "Educa- 
tion" and  the  various  works  published  by  Adams 
himself,  was  completed  before  the  appearance  of  the 
"Letters  to  a  Niece"  and  the  "Cycle  of  Adams  Let- 
ters." The  introduction  to  the  former  book  suggested 
some  important  modifications.  But  in  this  case  it  was 
most  interesting  to  find  the  main  lines  of  the  portrait 
confirmed  in  the  striking  series  of  letters  exchanged 
between  the  Adamses,  father  and  sons.  What  more  is 
needed  to  show  the  identity  of  the  Henry  Adams  of 
the  Civil  War  and  the  Henry  Adams  of  the  "Educa- 
tion" than  this  passage,  addressed  to  him  by  his  eldei 
brother  in  1862:  "You  set  up  for  a  philosopher.  You 
write  letters  a  la  Horace  Walpole;  you  talk  of  loafing 
round  Europe;  you  pretend  to  have  seen  life.  Such 
twaddle  makes  me  feel  like  a  giant  Warrington  talking 
to  an  infant  Pendennis.  You  'tired  of  this  life'!  You 
more  and  more  'callous  and  indifferent  about  your  own 
fortunes'! .  .  .  Fortune  has  done  nothing  but  favor 
you  and  yet  you  are  'tired  of  this  life.'  You  are  beaten 
back  everywhere  before  you  are  twenty-four,  and 
finally  writing  philosophical  letters  you  grumble  at  the 


PREFACE 

strange  madness  of  the  times  and  haven't  faith  in  God 
and  the  spirit  of  your  age.  What  do  you  mean  by 
thinking,  much  less  writing  such  stuff?"  (Cycle,  vol  i, 
p.  102.)  To  which,  for  completeness,  we  may  add  these 
words  of  Henry  himself:  "A  man  whose  mind  is  bal- 
anced like  mine,  in  such  a  way  that  what  is  evil  never 
seems  unmixed  with  good,  and  what  is  good  always 
streaked  with  evil;  an  object  seems  never  important 
enough  to  call  out  strong  energies  till  they  are  ex- 
hausted, nor  necessary  enough  not  to  allow  of  its 
failure  being  possible."  (Cycle,  vol.  i,  p.  195.) 

To  the  complications  which  peculiarly  affect  work 
on  contemporaries  must  be  joined  an  increasing  sense 
of  the  difficulty  of  accomplishing  the  portrayal  of  souls 
at  all.  More  than  ever  I  feel  that  such  portrayal,  at 
least  as  I  can  perform  it,  has  no  final  value.  Souls 
tremble  and  shift  and  fade  under  the  touch.  They 
elude  and  evade  and  mock  you,  fool  you  with  false 
lights  and  perplex  you  with  impenetrable  shadows,  till 
you  are  almost  ready  to  give  up  in  despair  any  effort  to 
interpret  them.  But  you  cannot  give  it  up ;  for  there  is 
no  artistic  effort  more  fascinating  and  no  study  so 
completely  inexhaustible. 

If  the  substance  on  which  we  have  to  found  spiritual 
interpretation  could  be  relied  on,  we  might  have  more 
confidence  in  the  superstructure.  But  the  further  we 
go,  the  more  our  confidence  is  shaken.  Take  one  special 
form  of  material,  the  report  of  words  and  conversations. 
All  historians  and  biographers  use  such  report,  are 
tempted  to  use  it  much  more  than  they  do.  Yet  how 
abominably  uncertain  it  is  and  must  be.  Who  of  us 


Xll 


PREFACE' 

can  remember  for  an  hour  the  exact  words  he  himself 
used,  even  important  words,  significant  words?  Much 
more,  who  can  remember  such  words  of  any  one  else? 
Yet  diarists  and  biographers  will  go  home  and  set  down 
at  the  end  of  a  long  evening,  or  perhaps  a  day  or  two 
later,  elaborate  phrases  which  the  alleged  speaker  may 
have  used,  and  much  more  likely  may  not.  And  this, 
when  the  turn  of  a  sentence  may  alter  the  light  on  a 
man's  soul!  Of  such  materials  is  biography  made.  I 
should  not  wish  any  one  to  have  more  confidence  in 
mine,  at  least,  than  I  have  myself. 

I  desire  to  acknowledge  generally  the  courtesy  and 
helpfulness  of  many  correspondents  who  have  offered 
useful  suggestions  and  corrected  errors.  And  for  the 
opportunity  of  profiting  by  these,  I  must  chiefly  thank 
the  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  whose  steady  and 
cordial  support  and  sympathy  enable  me  to  prosecute 
my  work  with  an  enthusiasm  which  I  could  hardly 
draw  from  any  other  source. 

GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 
WELLESLEY  HILLS,  MASSACHUSETTS 
January,  1922 


CONTENTS 

I.  MARK  TWAIN  1 

II.  HENRY  ADAMS  29 

III.  SIDNEY  LANIER  59 

IV.  JAMES  MCNEILL  WHISTLER  85 
V.  JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE  113 

VI.  GROVER  CLEVELAND  143 

VII.  HENRY  JAMES  171 

VIII.  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  197 

NOTES  225 

INDEX  243 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

SAMUEL  LANGHORNE  CLEMENS  Frontispiece 

HENRY  ADAMS  30 

From  a  drawing  by  James  Brooks  Potter 

SIDNEY  LANIER  60 

JAMES  MCNEILL  WHISTLER  86 

JAMES  G.  ELAINE  114 

GROVER  CLEVELAND  144 

i    Photograph  by  Pach  Brothers,  New  York 

HENRY  JAMES  172 

From  a  painting  by  J.  S.  Sargent,  R.A.  Photograph 
by  Emery  Walker,  Limited,  made  by  permission  of 
the  Director  of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 

JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  198 

Photograph  by  Sarony,  New  York 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 
1875-1900 

I 

MARK  TWAIN 


CHRONOLOGY 

Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens. 

Born,  Florida,  Missouri,  November  30,  1835. 

Pilot  on  the  Mississippi,  1857-1861. 

In  the  West,  1861-1866. 

Innocents  Abroad  published,  1869. 

Married  Olivia  Langdon,  February  2,  1870. 

Roughing  It  published,  1872. 

Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer  published,  1876. 

Adventures  of  Huckleberry  Finn  published,  1884. 

Failure  of  Webster  &  Company,  1894. 

Wife  died,  June  5,  1904. 

Degree  of  Doctor  of  Letters  from  Oxford,  1907. 

Died,  Redding,  Connecticut,  April  21,  1910. 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS  ; 
i 

MARK  TWAIN 

i 

WHEN  I  was  a  boy  of  fourteen,  Mark  Twain  took  hold 
of  me  as  no  other  book  had  then  and  few  have  since.  I 
lay  on  the  rug  before  the  fire  in  the  long  winter  eve- 
nings and  my  father  read  me  "The  Innocents  Abroad" 
and  "Roughing  It"  and  "Old  Times  on  the  Missis- 
sippi," and  I  laughed  till  I  cried.  Nor  was  it  all 
laughter.  The  criticism  of  life,  strong  and  personal,  if 
crude,  the  frank,  vivid  comments  on  men  and  things, 
set  me  thinking  as  I  had  never  thought,  and  for  several 
years  colored  my  maturing  reflection  in  a  way  that 
struck  deep  and  lasted  long. 

Such  is  my  youthful  memory  of  Mark.  For  forty 
years  I  read  little  of  him.  Now,  leaping  over  that 
considerable  gulf,  reading  and  re-reading  old  and  new 
together,  to  distil  the  essence  of  his  soul  in  a  brief 
portrait,  has  been  for  me  a  wild  revel,  a  riot  of  laughter 
and  criticism  and  prejudice  and  anti-prejudice  and 
revolt  and  rapture,  from  which  it  seems  as  if  no  sane 
and  reasoned  judgment  could  ensue.  Perhaps  none  has. 

This  much  is  clear,  to  start  with,  that  Mark  is  not  to 
be  defined  or  judged  by  the  ordinary  standards  of  mere 
writers  or  literary  men.  He  was  something  different, 

3 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

perhaps  something  bigger  and  deeper  and  more  human, 
at  any  rate  sornething  different.  He  did  a  vast  amount 
of  literary  \wprk  and  did  it,  if  one  may  say  so,  in  a 
literary  manner.  He  was  capable  of  long,  steady  toil  at 
the  desk.  He  wrote  and  rewrote,  revised  his  copy  over 
and  over  again  with  patience  and  industry.  He  had  the 
writer's  sense  of  living  for  the  public,  too,  instinctively 
made  copy  of  his  deepest  personal  emotions  and  ex- 
periences. One  of  his  most  striking  productions  is  the 
account  of  the  death  of  his  daughter,  Jean;  but  no  one 
but  a  born  writer  would  have  deliberately  set  down 
such  experiences  at  such  a  moment  with  publication  in 
his  thought.  And  he  liked  literary  glory.  To  be  sure, 
he  sometimes  denied  this.  In  youth  he  wrote,  "There 
is  no  satisfaction  in  the  world's  praise  anyhow,  and  it 
has  no  worth  to  me  save  in  the  way  of  business."  1 
Again,  he  says  in  age,  "Indifferent  to  nearly  every- 
thing but  work.  I  like  that;  I  enjoy  it,  and  stick  to  it. 
I  do  it  without  purpose  and  without  ambition;  merely 
for  the  love  of  it."  a  All  the  same,  fame  was  sweet  to 
him. 

Yet  one  cannot  think  of  him  as  a  professional  writer. 
Rather,  there  is  something  of  the  bard  about  him,  of 
the  old,  epic,  popular  singer,  who  gathered  up  in  him- 
self, almost  unconsciously,  the  life  and  spirit  of  a  whole 
nation  and  poured  it  forth,  more  as  a  voice,  an  instru- 
ment, than  as  a  deliberate  artist.  Consider  the  mass  of 
folk-lore  in  his  best,  his  native  books.  Is  it  not  just  such 
material  as  we  find  in  the  spontaneous,  elementary 
productions  of  an  earlier  age? 

Better  still,  perhaps,  we  should  speak  of  him  as  a 

A 


MARK  TWAIN    | 

journalist;  for  a  journalist  he  was  essentially  and 
always,  in  his  themes,  in  his  gorgeous  and  unfailing 
rhetoric,  even  in  his  attitude  toward  life.  The  journal- 
ist, when  inspired  and  touched  with  genius,  is  the 
nearest  equivalent  of  the  old  epic  singer,  most  embodies 
the  ideal  of  pouring  out  the  life  of  his  day  and  sur- 
roundings with  as  little  intrusion  as  possible  of  his  own 
personal,  reflective  consciousness. 

And  as  Mark  had  the  temperament  to  do  this,  so  he 
had  the  training.  No  man  ever  sprang  more  thoroughly 
from  the  people  or  was  better  qualified  to  interpret  the 
people.  Consider  the  nomadic  irrelevance  of  his  early 
days,  before  his  position  was  established,  if  it  was  ever 
established.  Born  in  the  Middle  West  toward  the 
middle  of  the  century,  he  came  into  a  moving  world, 
and  he  never  ceased  to  be  a  moving  spirit  and  to  move 
everybody  about  him.  He  tried  printing  as  a  business, 
but  any  indoor  business  was  too  tame,  even  though 
diversified  by  his  thousand  comic  inventions.  Piloting 
on  the  vast  meanders  of  the  Mississippi  was  better. 
What  contacts  he  had  there,  with  good  and  evil,  with 
joy  and  sorrow !  But  even  the  Mississippi  was  not  vast 
enough  for  his  uneasy  soul.  He  roved  the  Far  West," 
tramped,  traveled,  mined,  and  speculated,  was  rich  one 
day  and  miserably  poor  the  next;  and  all  the  time  he 
cursed  and  jested  alternately  and  filled  others  with 
laughter  and  amazement  and  affection  and  passed  into 
and  out  of  their  lives,  like  the  shifting  shadow  of  a 
dream.  Surely  the  line  of  the  old  poet  was  made  for 
him, 

"Now  clothed  in  feathers  lie  on  steeples  walks." 
5 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

And  thus  it  was  that  he  met  his  friend's  challenge  to 
walk  the  city  roofs,  where  they  promenaded  arm  in  arm, 
until  a  policeman  threatened  to  shoot,  and  was  only 
restrained  by  the  explanatory  outcry,  "Don't  shoot! 
That's  Mark  Twain  and  Artemus  Ward."  8 

This  was  his  outer  youthful  life,  and  within  it  was 
the  same.  For  with  some  the  feet  wander  while  the  soul 
sits  still.  It  was  not  so  with  him.  Though  all  his  life  he 
scolded  himself  for  laziness,  complained  of  his  indo- 
lence, or  gloried  in  it;  yet  when  he  was  interested  in 
anything,  his  heart  was  one  mad  fury  of  energy.  Listen 
to  his  theory  on  the  subject:  "If  I  were  a  heathen,  I 
would  rear  a  statue  to  Energy,  and  fall  down  and 
worship  it !  I  want  a  man  to  —  I  want  you  to  —  take 
up  a  line  of  action,  and  follow  it  out,  in  spite  of  the 
very  devil."  4  And  practice  for  himself  never  fell  short 
of  theory  for  others. 

To  be  sure,  his  energy  was  too  often  at  the  mercy  of 
impulse.  Where  his  fancies  led  him,  there  he  followed, 
with  every  ounce  of  force  he  had  at  the  moment.  What 
might  come  afterwards  he  did  not  stop  to  think  about 
— until  afterwards.  Then  there  were  sometimes  bitter 
regrets,  which  did  not  prevent  a  repetition  of  the  proc- 
ess. He  touches  off  the  whole  matter  with  his  unfail- 
ing humor:  "I  still  do  the  thing  commanded  by  Cir- 
cumstance and  Temperament,  and  reflect  afterward. 
Always  violently.  When  I  am  reflecting  on  these 
occasions,  even  deaf  persons  can  hear  me  think."  5 

Perhaps  the  most  amusing  of  all  these  spiritual 
efforts  and  adventures  of  his  youth  were  his  dealings 
with  money.  He  was  no  born  lover  of  money,  and  he 

6 


MARK  TWAIN 

was  certainly  no  miser;  but  he  liked  what  money 
brings,  and  from  his  childhood  he  hated  debt  and 
would  not  tolerate  it.  Therefore  he  was  early  and 
always  on  the  lookout  for  sources  of  gain  and  was  often 
shrewd  in  profiting  by  them.  But  what  he  loved  most 
of  all  was  to  take  a  chance.  His  sage  advice  on  the 
matter  is:  "There  are  two  times  in  a  man's  life  when  he 
should  not  speculate :  when  he  can't  afford  it  and  when 
he  can."  6  Apparently  his  own  life  escaped  from  these 
all-embracing  conditions;  for  he  speculated  always.  A 
gold  mine  or  a  patent,  an  old  farm  or  a  new  print- 
ing machine  —  all  were  alike  to  him,  vast  regions  of 
splendid  and  unexplored  possibility.  And  much  as  he 
reveled  in  the  realities  of  life,  possibility  was  his  natural 
domain,  gorgeous  dreams  and  sunlit  fancies,  strange 
realms  of  the  imagination,  where  his  youthful  spirit 
loved  to  wander  and  shape  cloud  futures  that  could 
never  come  to  pass,  as  he  himself  well  knew,  and  knew 
that  to  their  unrealizable  remoteness  they  owed  the 
whole  of  their  charm. 

But,  you  say,  this  was,  after  all,  youthful.  When 
years  came  upon  him,  when  he  had  tasted  the  sedate 
soberness  of  life,  dreams  must  have  grown  dim  or  been 
forgotten.  Far  from  it.  His  lovely  wife  called  him 
"Youth,"  till  she  died,  and  he  deserved  it.  Though  he 
was  married  and  a  great  author  and  had  a  dozen  homes, 
he  never  settled  down,  neither  his  feet  nor  his  soul. 
The  spirit  of  his  early  ideal,  "A  life  of  don't-care-a- 
damn  in  a  boarding-house  is  what  I  have  asked  for  in 
many  a  secret  prayer,"  7  lingered  with  him  always. 
You  see,  he  had  restless  nerves,  to  which  long  quiet  and 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

solitary,  sombre  reflection  were  a  horror.  And  then  he 
had  perfect,  magnificent  health,  the  kind  that  can 
endure  boarding-houses  without  ruin.  "In  no  other 
human  being  have  I  ever  seen  such  physical  endur- 
ance," says  his  biographer.8  And  Mark  himself  de- 
clared that  he  never  knew  what  fatigue  was.  Who  iha't 
was  made  like  this  would  not  be  glad  to  wander  forever? 
So  Mark  was  most  happy  and  most  at  home  when  he 
was  wandering. 

He  saw  and  liked  to  see  all  things  and  all  men  and 
women.  The  touch  of  a  human  hand  was  pleasant  to 
him,  and  the  sound  of  a  human  voice,  speaking  no 
matter  what  lingo.  He  made  friends  of  pilots  and 
pirates  and  miners  and  peasants  and  emperors  and 
clergymen,  particularly  clergymen,  over  whom  he 
apparently  exercised  such  witchery  that  oaths  from 
him  fell  on  their  ears  like  prayers  from  other  people. 
No  man  ever  more  abused  the  human  heart,  or  railed 
more  at  the  hollowness  of  human  affection,  and  no  man 
ever  had  more  friends  or  loved  more.  To  be  sure,  he 
could  hate,  with  humorous  frenzy  and  apparently  with 
persistence.  But  love  in  the  main  prevailed  and,  indeed, 
what  anchored  his  wandering  footsteps  was  not  places 
but  souls,  was  love  and  tenderness.  He  had  plenty  for 
the  pilots  and  the  pirates  and  the  clergymen.  He  had 
much  more  for  those  who  were  nearest  him.  His 
infinite  devotion  to  his  daughters,  most  of  all  to  his 
wife,  who  was  fully  worthy  of  it  and  who  understood 
and  brought  out  the  best  in  him  and  tolerated  what 
was  not  so  good,  is  not  the  least  among  the  things  that 
make  him  lovable. 

8 


MARK  TWAIN 

As  he  was  a  creature  of  contradictions,  it  is  no  sur- 
prise to  find  that,  while  he  prayed  for  boarding-houses, 
he  loved  comfort  and  even  luxury.  He  would  have  eaten 
off  a  plank  in  a  mining-camp,  and  slept  on  one;  but  the 
softest  beds  and  the  richest  tables  were  never  unwel- 
come, and  one  attraction  of  wandering  was  to  see  how 
comfortable  men  can  be  as  well  as  how  uncomfortable. 
Now,  to  have  luxury,  you  must  have  money.  And 
Mark,  in  age  as  in  youth,  always  wanted  money, 
whether  from  mines  in  Nevada,  or  from  huge  books 
sold  by  huge  subscription,  or  from  strange  and  surpris- 
ing inventions  that  were  bound  to  revolutionize  the 
world]  and  bring  in  multimillions.  He  always  wanted 
money,  though  rivers  of  it  ran  in  to  him  —  and  ran  out 
again.  He  spent  it,  he  gave  it  away,  he  never  had  it,  he 
always  wanted  it. 

And  always,  till  death,  his  soul  wandered  even  more 
than  his  body  did.  And  his  adventures  with  money 
were  mainly  matters  of  dream,  even  when  the  dreams 
were  punctuated  with  sharp  material  bumps.  Again 
and  again  some  exciting  speculation  appealed  to  him, 
as  much  for  its  excitement  as  for  its  profit.  He  built 
great  cloud  castles  and  wandered  in  them  and  bade  his 
friends  admire  them  and  made  colossal  calculations  of 
enormous  successes.  Then  the  clouds  collapsed  and 
vanished  and  the  flaw  in  the  calculations  became 
apparent  —  too  late.  Calculations  were  never  a  strong 
point  with  him,  whether  of  assets  or  liabilities.  He 
spent  a  white  night  working  over  the  latter:  "When  I 
came  down  in  the  morning  a  gray  and  aged  wreck,  and 
went  over  the  figures  again,  I  found  that  in  some 

9 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

unaccountable  way  I  had  multiplied  the  totals  by  2. 
By  God,  I  dropped  75  years  on  the  floor  where  I 
stood."  • 

Even  his  loves  had  an  element  of  dream  in  them,  and 
surely  dream  made  up  a  large  portion  of  his  hatred. 
Certain  natures  offended  him,  exasperated  him,  and  he 
amused  himself  with  furious  assertion  of  how  he  would 
like  to  torment  them.  If  he  had  seen  one  of  them  suffer, 
even  hi  a  finger's  end,  he  would  have  done  all  in  his 
power  to  relieve  it.  But  in  the  abstract  how  he  did 
luxuriate  in  abuse  of  these  imaginary  enemies,  what 
splendor  of  new-coined  damnation  he  lavished  on  them, 
and  all  a  matter  of  dreams! 

Something  of  dream  entered  also  into  his  widespread 
glory;  for  such  wealth  of  praise  and  admiration  has 
surely  not  often  fallen  upon  walkers  of  the  firm-set 
earth.  During  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  century 
he  drifted  in  his  white  dream  garments  —  as  Emily 
Dickinson  did  in  solitude  —  through  dream  crowds 
who  applauded  him  and  looked  up  to  him  and  loved 
him.  And  he  ridiculed  it,  turned  it  inside  out  to  show 
the  full  dream  lining,  and  enjoyed  it,  enjoyed  his  vast 
successes  on  the  public  platform,  enjoyed  the  thronging 
tributes  of  epistolary  admirers,  enjoyed  the  many 
hands  that  touched  his  in  loving  and  grateful  tender- 
ness. 

And  at  the  end,  to  make  the  dream  complete,  as  if  it 
were  the  conception  of  a  poet,  a  full,  rounded,  perfect 
tragedy,  misfortunes  and  disasters  piled  hi  upon  the 
dream  glory  and  thwarted  and  blighted  it,  even  while 
their  depth  of  gloom  seemed  to  make  its  splendor  more 

10 


MARK  TWAIN 

imposing.  Money,  which  had  all  along  seduced  him, 
betrayed  him,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  and  he  wallowed 
in  the  distress  of  bankruptcy,  till  he  made  his  own 
shoulders  lift  the  burden.  One  of  his  daughters,  who 
was  very  dear  to  him,  died  when  he  was  far  away  from 
her.  His  wife  died  and  took  happiness  with  her  and 
made  all  glory  seem  like  sordid  folly.  His  youngest 
daughter  died  suddenly,  tragically.  What  was  there 
left? 

Nothing.  Toys,  trifles,  snatched  moments  of  obliv- 
ion, billiards,  billiards,  till  midnight,  then  a  little 
troubled  sleep,  and  more  billiards  till  the  end.  In 
perhaps  the  most  beautiful  words  he  ever  wrote  he 
summed  up  the  fading  quality  of  it  all  under  this  very 
figure  of  a  dream:  "Old  Age,  white-headed,  the  temple 
empty,  the  idols  broken,  the  worshipers  in  their  graves, 
nothing  but  You,  a  remnant,  a  tradition,  belated  fag- 
end  of  a  foolish  dream,  a  dream  that  was  so  ingeniously 
dreamed  that  it  seemed  real  all  the  time;  nothing  left 
but  You,  centre  of  a  snowy  desolation,  perched  on  the 
ice-summit,  gazing  out  over  the  stages  of  that  long  trek 
and  asking  Yourself,  *  Would  you  do  it  again  if  you  had 
the  chance?"'  10 

II 

MARK  TWAIN  is  generally  known  to  the  world  as  a 
laugher.  His  seriousness,  his  pathos,  his  romance,  his 
instinct  for  adventure,  are  all  acknowledged  and  en- 
joyed. Still,  the  mention  of  his  name  almost  always 
brings  a  smile  first.  So  did  the  sight  of  him. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  found  the  universe  laugh- 

11 


.    AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

able  and  made  it  so.  The  ultimate  test  of  the  laughing 
instinct  is  that  a  man  should  be  always  ready  to  laugh 
at  himself.  Mark  was.  The  strange  chances  of  his  life, 
its  ups  and  downs,  its  pitiful  disasters,  sometimes 
made  him  weep,  often  made  him  swear.  But  at  a  touch 
they  could  always  make  him  laugh.  "There  were  few 
things  that  did  not  amuse  him,"  writes  his  biographer, 
"and  certainly  nothing  amused  more,  or  oftener, 
than  himself."  n  One  brief  sentence  sums  up  what  he 
was  never  tired  of  repeating,  "I  have  been  an  author 
for  20  years  and  an  ass  for  55."  12  And  he  not  only  saw 
laughter  when  it  came  to  him.  He  went  to  seek  it.  He 
was  always  fond  of  jests  and  fantastic  tricks,  made 
mirth  out  of  solemn  things  and  solemn  people,  stood 
ready,  like  the  clown  of  the  circus,  to  crack  his  whip 
and  bid  the  world  dance  after  him  in  quaint  freaks  of 
jollity,  all  the  more  diverting  when  staid  souls  and 
mirthless  visages  played  a  chief  part  in  the  furious 
revel. 

On  the  strength  of  this  constant  sense  and  love  of 
laughter  many  have  maintained  that  Mark  was  one  of 
the  great  world  humorists,  that  he  ranks  with  Cer- 
vantes and  Sterne  and  the  Shakespeare  of  "As  You 
Like  It"  and  "Twelfth  Night,"  as  one  who  was  an 
-,  essential  exponent  of  the  comic  spirit.  With  this  view 
!  I  cannot  wholly  agree.  It  is  true  that  Mark  could  find 
j  the  laughable  element  in  everything,  true  also  that  he 
I  had  that  keen  sense  of  melancholy  which  is  inseparable 
from  the  richest  comedy.    Few  have  expressed  this 
more  intensely  than  he  has:  "Everything  human  is 
/  pathetic.  The  secret  source  of  humor  itself  is  not  joy, 

12 


MARK  TWAIN 

but  sorrow.  There  is  no  humor  in  heaven."  18  Yet  the 
very  extravagance  of  expression  here  suggests  my 
difficulty.  Somehow  in  Mark  the  humor  and  the  pathos 
are  not  essentially  blended.  The  laughter  is  wild  and 
exuberant  as  heart  can  desire.  But  it  does  not  really  go 
to  the  bottom  of  things.  Serious  matters,  so-called 
serious  matters,  are  taken  too  seriously;  and  under  the 
laughter  there  is  a  haunting  basis  of  wrath  and  bitter- 
ness and  despair. 

To  elucidate  this  it  is  necessary  to  examine  and 
follow  the  process  and  progress  of  Mark's  thinking.  In 
early  years,  as  he  himself  admits,  he  thought  little, 
that  is,  abstractly.  His  mind  was  active  enough,  busy 
enough,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  his  fancy  was  always 
full  of  dreams.  But  he  let  the  great  problems  alone,  did 
not  analyze,  did  not  philosophize,  content  to  extract 
immense  joviality  from  the  careless  surface  of  life  and 
not  probe  further.  Even  the  analysis  of  laughter  itself 
did  not  tempt  him.  In  this  he  was  probably  wise  and  he 
maintained  the  attitude  always.  "Humor  is  a  subject 
which  has  never  had  much  interest  for  me."  14  Indeed, 
the  analysis  of  humor  may  be  safely  left  to  those  gray 
persons  who  do  not  know  what  it  is.  But  much  of  the 
jesting  of  Mark's  youthful  days  is  so  trivial  that  it 
distinctly  implies  the  absence  of  steady  thinking  on 
any  subject.  Not  that  he  was  indifferent  to  practical 
seriousness.  Wrong,  injustice,  cruelty,  could  always 
set  him  on  fire  in  a  moment.  There  was  no  folly  about 
his  treatment  of  these.  But  at  that  stage  his  serious- 
ness was  busy  with  effects  rather  than  with  causes.  ' 

Then  he  acquired  money  and  leisure  and  began  to 

13 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

reflect  upon  the  nature  of  things.  This  late  dawning  of 
his  speculative  turn  must  always  be  remembered  in 
considering  the  quality  of  it.  It  accounts  for  the  singu- 
lar gaps  in  his  information  about  simple  matters,  for 
the  impression  of  terrific  but  not  very  well-guided 
energy  which  comes  from  his  intellectual  effort.  It 
accounts  for  the  sense  of  surprise  and  novelty  in  his 
spiritual  attitude,  which  Howells  so  justly  pointed 
out. 15  He  seems  always  like  a  man  discovering  things 
which  are  perfectly  well  known  to  trained  thinkers,  and 
this  gives  an  extraordinary  freshness  and  spirit  to  his 
pronouncements  on  all  speculative  topics. 

When  he  became  aware  of  his  reasoning  powers,  he 
delighted  in  them.  His  shrewd  little  daughter  said  of 
him,  "He  is  as  much  of  a  philosopher  as  anything,  I 
think."  16  He  was  a  philosopher  by  inclination,  at  any 
rate.  He  loved  to  worry  the  universe,  as  a  kitten 
worries  a  ball  of  yarn.  Perhaps  this  seemed  to  make  up 
in  a  small  way  for  the  worries  the  universe  had  given 
him.  He  loved  to  argue  and  discuss  and  dispute  and 
confute,  and  then  to  spread  over  all  bitterness  the 
charm  of  his  inextinguishable  laughter.  His  oaths  and 
jests  and  epigrams  convulsed  his  interlocutors,  if  they 
did  not  convince  them. 

As  to  his  theoretical  conclusions,  it  may  be  said  that 
they  were  in  the  main  nihilistic.  But  before  considering 
them  more  particularly,  it  must  be  insisted  and  em- 
phasized that  they  were  theoretical  and  did  not  affect 
his  practical  morals.  Few  human  beings  ever  lived  who 
had  a  nicer  conscience  and  a  finer  and  more  delicate 
fulfilment  of  duty.  It  is  true  that  all  his  life  he  kept  up 

14 


MARK  TWAIN 

a  constant  humorous  depreciation  of  himself  in  this 
regard.  If  you  listened  to  his  own  confessions,  you 
would  think  him  the  greatest  liar  hi  existence  and 
conclude  that  his  moral  depravation  was  only  equaled 
by  his  intellectual  nullity.  This  method  is  often  effec- 
tive for  hiding  and  excusing  small  defects  and  delin- 
quencies. But  Mark  needed  no  such  excuse.  What 
failings  there  were  in  his  moral  character  were  those 
incident  to  humanity.  As  an  individual  he  stood  with 
the  best. 

The  most  obvious  instances  of  his  rectitude  are  hi 
regard  to  money.  In  spite  of  his  dreams  and  specu- 
lative vagaries,  he  was  punctiliously  scrupulous  in 
financial  relations,  his  strictness  culminating  in  the  vast 
effort  of  patience  and  self-denial  necessary  to  pay  off 
the  debt  of  honor  which  fell  upon  him  in  his  later  years. 
But  the  niceness  of  his  conscience  was  not  limited  to 
broad  obligations  of  this  kind.  "Mine  was  a  trained 
Presbyterian  conscience,"  he  says,  "and  knew  but  the 
one  duty  —  to  hunt  and  harry  its  slave  upon  all  pre- 
texts and  all  occasions."  17  He  might  trifle,  he  might 
quibble,  he  might  jest;  but  no  one  was  more  anxious  to 
do  what  was  fair  and  right,  even  to  the  point  of  over- 
doing it.  "I  don't  wish  even  to  seem  to  do  anything 
which  can  invite  suspicion,"  he  said,  as  to  a  matter  so 
trivial  as  taking  advantage  in  a  game. 18 

And  the  moral  sense  was  not  confined  to  practical 
matters  of  conduct.  Human  tenderness  and  kindliness 
and  sympathy  have  rarely  been  more  highly  developed 
than  in  this  man  who  questioned  their  existence.  The 
finest  touch  in  all  his  writings  is  the  cry  of  Huck  Finn 

15 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

when,  after  a  passionate  struggle  between  his  duty  to 
society  and  his  duty  to  friendship,  he  tears  the  paper  in 
which  he  proposed  to  surrender  the  nigger,  Jim,  and 
exclaims,  "All  right,  then,  I  '11  go  to  hell."  19  And  Mark 
himself  would  have  been  perfectly  capable,  not  only  of 
saying  he  would  go,  but  of  going. 

As  he  loved  men,'so  he  trusted  them.  In  the  abstract, 
judging  from  himself,  he  declared  they  were  monsters 
of  selfishness,  greedy,  deceitful,  treacherous,  thought- 
ful in  all  things  of  their  own  profit  and  advantage.  In 
the  individual,  again  judging  from  himself,  he  accepted 
them  at  their  face  value,  as  kindly,  self-sacrificing, 
ready  to  believe,  ready  to  love,  ready  to  help.  Being 
himself  an  extreme  example,  both  in  sceptical  analysis 
and  in  human  instinct,  he  often  fell  into  error  and 
trusted  where  there  was  no  foundation  to  build  on. 

In  consequence  his  actual  experience  went  far  to 
justify  his  sceptical  theories,  and  he  presents  another 
instance,  like  Byron,  like  Leopardi,  of  a  man  whose 
standard  of  life  is  so  high,  who  expects  so  much  of  him- 
self and  of  others,  that  the  reality  perpetually  fails  him, 
and  excess  of  optimism  drives  him  to  excess  of  pessi- 
mism. For  example,  his  interesting  idealization  or 
idolatry  of  Joan  of  Arc,  his  belief  that  she  actually 
existed  as  a  miracle  of  nature,  makes  it  comprehensible 
that  he  should  find  ordinary  men  and  women  faulty 
and  contemptible  enough  compared  with  such  a  type. 

It  is  not  the  place  here  to  analyze  Mark's  speculative 
conclusions  in  detail.  They  may  be  found  theoretically 
elaborated  in  "What  is  Man?",  practically  applied  in 
"The  Mysterious  Stranger"  and  the  "Maxims  of 

16 


MARK  TWAIN 

Pudd'nhead  Wilson,"  and  artistically  illustrated  in 
"The  Man  Who  Corrupted  Hadleyburg"  and  innu- 
merable other  stories.  They  may  be  summed  up  as  a 
soul-less  and  blasting  development  of  crude  evolution- 
ary materialism,  as  manifested  in  the  teachings  of 
Robert  Ingersoll.  Man's  freedom  disappears,  his 
morality  becomes  enlightened  selfishness,  his  soul  is 
dissipated  into  thin  air,  his  future  life  grows  so  dubious 
as  to  be  disregarded,  and  the  thought  of  death  is  only 
tolerable  because  life  is  not.  The  deity,  in  any  sense  of 
value  to  humanity,  is  quite  disposed  of;  or,  if  he  is  left 
lurking  in  an  odd  corner  of  the  universe,  it  is  with  such 
complete  discredit  that  one  can  only  remember  the 
sarcasm  of  the  witty  Frenchman:  "The  highest  com- 
pliment we  can  pay  God  is  not  to  believe  in  him." 

In  all  this  perpetually  recurrent  fierce  dissection  of 
the  divine  and  human,  one  is  constantly  impressed  by 
the  vigor  and  independence  of  the  thinking.  The  man 
makes  his  own  views;  or  since,  as  he  himself  repeatedly 
insists,  no  one  does  this,  at  least  he  makes  them  over, 
rethinks  them,  gives  them  a  cast,  a  touch  that  stamps 
them  Mark  Twain's  and  no  one  else's,  and,  as  such, 
significant  for  the  study  of  his  character,  if  for  nothing 
more. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  thinking  is  fresh  and  vig- 
orous, one  is  also  impressed  and  distressed  by  its  nar- 
rowness and  dogmatism.  Here  again  the  man's  in- 
dividuality shows  in  ample,  humorous  recognition  of 
his  own  weakness,  or  excess  of  strength.  No  one  has 
ever  admitted  with  more  delightful  candor  the  en- 
croaching passion  of  a  preconceived  theory.  I  have  got 

17 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

a  philosophy  of  life,  he  says,  and  the  rest  of  my  days 
will  be  spent  in  patching  it  up  and  "in  looking  the  other 
way  when  an  imploring  argument  or  a  damaging  fact 
approaches."  20  Nevertheless,  the  impression  of  dog- 
matism remains,  or,  let  us  say  better,  of  limitation. 
The  thinking  is  acute,  but  it  does  not  go  to  the  bottom 
of  things.  The  fundamental,  dissolving  influence  of 
the  idealistic  philosophy,  for  instance,  is  not  once 
suggested  or  comprehended.  This  shows  nowhere  more 
fully  than  in  the  discussion  of  Christian  Science.  Ev- 
erything is  shrewd,  apt,  brilliant,  but  wholly  on  the 
surface. 

The  effect  of  the  bitter  and  withering  character  of 
Mark's  thought  on  his  own  life  was  much  emphasized 
by  the  lack  of  the  great  and  sure  spiritual  resources 
that  are  an  unfailing  refuge  to  some  of  us.  He  could  not 
transport  himself  into  the  past.  When  he  attempted  it, 
he  carried  all  the  battles  and  problems  of  to-day  along 
with  him,  as  in  the  "Yankee  at  the  Court  of  King 
Arthur."  He  had  not  the  historical  feeling  in  its  richest 
sense.  Art,  also,  in  all  its  deeper  manifestations,  was 
hidden  from  him.  He  could  not  acquire  a  love  for 
classical  painting  or  music,  and  revenged  himself  for 
his  lack  of  such  enjoyment  by  railing  at  those  who  had 
it.  Even  Nature  did  not  touch  great  depths  in  him, 
because  they  were  not  there.  He  reveled  in  her  more 
theatrical  aspects,  sunsets,  ice-storms.  Her  energy 
stimulated  a  strange  excitement  in  him,  shown  in 
Twitchell's  account  of  his  rapture  over  a  mount aii^ 
brook.21  I  do  not  find  that  he  felt  the  charm  of  lonely 
walks  in  country  solitude. 

18 


MARK  TWAIN 

It  is  on  this  lack  of  depth  in  thinking  and  feeling  that 
I  base  my  reluctance  to  class  Mark  with  the  greatest 
comic  writers  of  the  world.  His  thought  was  bitter 
because  it  was  shallow;  it  did  not  go  deep  enough  to 
get  the  humble  tolerance,  the  vast  self-distrust  that 
should  go  with  a  dissolving  vision  of  the  foundations  of 
the  individual  universe.  His  writing  alternates  from 
the  violence  of  unmeaning  laughter  to  the  harshness  of 
satire  that  has  no  laughter  in  it.  In  this  he  resembles 
Moliere,  whose  Scapins  are  as  far  from  reflection  as  are 
his  Tartuffes  from  gayety.  And  Mark's  place  is  rather 
with  the  bitter  satirists,  Moliere,  Ben  Jonson,  Swift, 
than  with  the  great,  broad,  sunshiny  laughers,  Lamb, 
Cervantes,  and  the  golden  comedy  of  Shakespeare. 

Indeed,  no  one  word  indicates  better  the  lack  I  mean 
in  Mark  than  "sunshine."  You  may  praise  his  work  in 
many  ways;  but  could  any  one  ever  call  it  merry?  He 
can  give  you  at  all  times  a  riotous  outburst  of  convuls- 
ing cachinnation.  He  cannot  give  you  merriment, 
sunshine,  pure  and  lasting  joy.  And  these  are  always 
the  enduring  elements  of  the  highest  comedy. 

IIT 

Bur  perhaps  this  is  to  consider  too  curiously.  The 
vast  and  varied  total  of  Mark's  works  affords  other 
elements  of  interest  besides  the  analysis  of  speculative 
thought,  or  even  of  laughter.  Above  all,  we  Americans 
should  appreciate  how  thoroughly  American  he  is.  To 
be  sure,  in  the  huge  mixture  of  stocks  and  races  that 
surrounds  us,  it  seems  absurd  to  pick  out  anything  or 
anybody  as  typically  American.  Yet  we  do  it.  We  all 

19 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

choose  Franklin  as  the  American  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  Lincoln  as  the  American  of  the  nineteenth. 
And  most  will  agree  that  Mark  was  as  American  as 
either  of  these. 

He  was  American  in  appearance.  The  thin,  agile, 
mobile  figure,  with  its  undulating  ease  in  superficial 
awkwardness,  suggested  worlds  of  humorous  sensibility . 
The  subtle,  wrinkled  face,  under  its  rich  shock  of  hair, 
first  red,  then  snowy  white,  had  endless  possibilities  of 
sympathetic  response.  It  was  a  face  that  expressed, 
repressed,  impressed  every  variety  of  emotion  known 
to  its  owner. 

He  was  American  in  all  his  defects  and  limitations. 
The  large  tolerance,  cut  short  with  a  most  definite  end 
when  it  reached  the  bounds  of  its  comprehension,  was 
eminently  American.  The  slight  flavor  of  vanity,  at 
least  of  self-complacent  satisfaction,  the  pleasant  and 
open  desire  to  fill  a  place  in  the  world,  whether  by 
mounting  a  platform  at  just  the  right  moment  or 
wearing  staring  white  clothes  in  public  places,  we  may 
call  American  with  slight  emphasis,  as  well  as  human. 

But  these  weaknesses  were  intimately  associated 
with  a  very  American  excellence,  the  supreme  candor, 
the  laughing  frankness  which  recognized  them  always. 
Assuredly  no  human  being  ever  more  abounded  in  such 
candor  than  Mark  Twain.  He  confessed  at  all  times, 
with  the  superabundance  of  diction  that  was  born  with 
him,  all  his  enjoyment,  all  his  suffering,  all  his  sin,  all 
his  hope,  all  his  despair. 

And  he  was  American  in  another  delightful  thing, 
his  quickness  and  readiness  of  sympathy,  his  singular 

20 


MARK  TWAIN' 

gentleness  and  tenderness.  He  could  lash  out  with  his 
tongue  and  tear  anything  and  anybody  to  pieces.  He 
could  not  have  done  bodily  harm  to  a  fly,  unless  a 
larger  pity  called  for  it.  He  was  supremely  modest  and 
simple  in  his  demands  upon  others,  supremely  deprecia- 
tive  of  the  many  things  he  did  for  them.  "  I  wonder 
why  they  all  go  to  so  much  trouble  for  me.  I  never  go 
to  any  trouble  for  anybody."  22  The  quiet  wistfulness 
of  it,  when  you  know  him,  brings  tears, 

Above  all,  he  was  American  in  his  thorough  democ- 
racy. He  had  a  pitiful  distrust  of  man;  but  his  belief  in 
men,  all  men,  was  as  boundless  as  his  love  for  them. 
Though  he  lived  much  with  the  rich  and  lofty,  he  was 
always  perfectly  at  home  with  the  simple  and  the  poor, 
understood  their  thoughts,  liked  their  ways,  and  made 
them  feel  that  he  had  been  simple  and  poor  himself  and 
might  be  so  again. 

He  was  not  only  democratic  in  feeling  and  spirit,  he 
was  democratic  in  authorship,  both  in  theory  and 
practice.  Hundreds  of  authors  have  been  obliged  to 
write  for  the  ignorant  many,  for  the  excellent  reason 
that  the  cultivated  few  would  not  listen  to  them.  Per- 
haps not  one  of  these  hundreds  has  so  deliberately 
avowed  his  purpose  of  neglecting  the  few  to  address  : 
the  many,  as  Mark  did.  The  long  letter  to  Mr.  Andrew  ' 
Lang,  in  which  he  proclaims  this  intention,  is  a  curious 
document.  Let  others  aim  high,  he  says,  let  others 
exhaust  themselves  in  restless  and  usually  vain  at- 
tempts to  please  fastidious  critics.  I  write  for  the 
million,  I  want  to  please  them,  I  know  how  to  do  it,  I 
have  done  it.  "  I  have  never  tried,  in  even  one  single 

21 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

instance,  to  help  cultivate  the  cultivated  classes.  . . . 
I  never  had  any  ambition  in  that  direction,  but  always 
hunted  for  bigger  game  —  the  masses.  I  have  seldom 
deliberately  tried  to  instruct  them,  but  have  done  my 
best  to  entertain  them.  To  simply  amuse  them  would 
have  satisfied  my  dearest  ambition  at  any  time."  28 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  weak  points 
in  this  theory.  Whatever  Mark,  or  any  one  else  pro- 
fesses, it  cannot  be  questioned  that  he  would  prefer  the 
approbation  of  the  cultured  few,  if  he  could  get  it. 
Moreover,  it  may  easily  be  maintained  that  the  many 
in  most  cases  take  their  taste  from  the  few;  and  if  this 
does  not  hold  with  a  writer's  contemporaries,  it  is 
unfailing  with  posterity.  If  a  writer  is  to  please  the 
generations  that  follow  him,  he  can  do  it  only  by  secur- 
ing the  praise  of  those  who  by  taste  and  cultivation  are 
qualified  to  judge.  In  other  words,  if  Mark's  works 
endure,  it  will  be  because  he  appealed  to  the  few  as  well 
as  to  the  many. 

However  this  may  be,  there  can  be  no  question  that 
Mark  reached  the  great  democratic  public  of  his  own 
day  and  held  it.  To  be  sure,  it  is  doubtful  whether  even 
he  attained  the  full  glory  of  what  he  and  Stevenson 
agreed  to  call  submerged  authorship,24  the  vast  accept- 
ance of  those  who  are  wept  over  at  lone  midnight  by 
the  shop-girl  and  the  serving-maid.  But  his  best- 
known  books,  "Tom  Sawyer,"  "Huck  Finn,"  "Life 
on  the  Mississippi,"  "The  Prince  and  the  Pauper," 
may  be  justly  said  to  belong  to  the  literature  of  Ameri- 
can democracy,  and  the  travel  books  and  many  others 
are  not  far  behind  these. 

22 


MARK  TWAIN 

With  this  deliberate  intention  to  appeal  to  the  masses 
and  to  affect  the  masses,  it  becomes  an  essential  part  of 
the  study  of  Mark's  career  and  character  to  consider 
what  his  influence  upon  the  masses  was.  He  talked  to 
them  all  his  life,  from  the  platform  and  from  the 
printed  page,  with  his  sympathetic,  human  voice,  his 
insinuating  smile.  What  did  his  talk  mean  to  them, 
how  did  it  affect  them,  for  good  or  for  evil? 

In  the  first  place,  beyond  a  doubt,  enormously  for 
good.  Laughter  in  itself  is  an  immense  blessing  to 
the  weary  soul,  not  a  disputable  blessing,  like  too 
much  teaching  and  preaching,  but  a  positive  benefit. 
"Amusement  is  a  good  preparation  for  study  and  a 
good  healer  of  fatigue  after  it,"  says  Mark  himself.25 
And  amusement  he  provided,  in  vast  abundance, 
muscle-easing,  spirit-easing. 

Also,  he  did  more  than  make  men  laugh;  he  made 
them  think,  on  practical,  moral  questions.  He  used  his 
terrible  weapon  of  satire  to  demolish  meanness,  greed, 
pettiness,  dishonesty.  He  may  have  believed  in  the 
abstract  that  selfishness  was  the  root  of  human  action, 
but  he  scourged  it  in  concrete  cases  with  whips  of 
scorpions.  He  may  have  believed  in  the  abstract  that 
men  were  unfit  to  govern  themselves,  but  he  threw  the 
bitterest  scorn  on  those  who  attempted  to  tyrannize 
over  others. 

Finally,  Mark's  admirers  insist,  and  insist  with 
justice,  that  he  was  a  splendid  agent  in  the  overthrow 
of  shams.  He  loved  truth,  sincerity,  the  simple  recog- 
nition of  facts  as  they  stand,  no  matter  how  homely, 
and  with  all  his  soul  he  detested  cant  of  all  kinds.  "His 

23 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

truth  and  his  honor,  his  love  of  truth,  and  his  love  of 
honor,  overflow  all  boundaries,"  says  Mr.  Birrell,  "he 
has  made  the  world  better  by  his  presence."  26  From 
this  point  of  view  the  praise  was  fully  deserved. 

Yet  it  is  just  here  that  we  come  upon  the  weakness. 
And  if  Mark  made  the  world  better,  he  also  made  it 
worse;  at  any  rate,  many  individuals  in  it.  For,  with 
the  wholesale  destruction  of  shams,  went,  as  so  often, 
the  destruction  of  reverence,  "that  angel  of  the  world," 
as  Shakespeare  calls  it.  When  Mark  had  fairly  got 
through  with  the  shams,  the  trouble  was  that  there  was 
nothing  left.  One  of  his  enthusiastic  admirers  compares 
him  to  Voltaire.  The  comparison  is  interesting  and 
suggestive.  Voltaire,  too,  was  an  enormous  power  in 
his  day.  He  wrote  for  the  multitude,  so  far  as  it  was 
then  possible  to  do  it.  He  wielded  splendid  weapons  of 
sarcasm  and  satire.  He  was  always  a  destroyer  of 
shams,  smashed  superstition  and  danced  upon  the 
remains  of  it.  But  Vpltaire  was  essentially  an  optimist 
and  believed  in  and  enjoyed  many  things.  He  be- 
lieved in  literature,  he  believed  in  glory,  above  all  he 
believed  in  himself.  When  Mark  had  stripped  from 
life  all  the  illusions  that  remained  even  to  Voltaire, 
there  was  nothing  left  but  a  bare,  naked,  ugly,  hideous 
corpse,  amiable  only  in  that  it  was  a  corpse,  or  finally 
would  be. 

Mark  himself  frequently  recognizes  this  charge  of 
being  a  demolisher  of  reverence  and  tries  to  rebut  it.  I 
never  assault  real  reverence,  he  says.  To  pretend  to 
revere  things  because  others  revere  them,  or  say  they 
do,  to  cherish  established  superstitions  of  art,  or  of 

24 


MARK  TWAIN 

morals,  or  of  religion,  is  to  betray  and  to  deceive  and  to 
corrupt.  But  I  never  mock  those  things  that  I  really 
revere  myself.  All  other  reverence  is  humbug.  And 
one  is  driven  to  ask,  What  does  he  really  revere  him- 
self ?  His  instinctive  reverence  for  humanity  in  individ- 
ual cases  is  doubtless  delicate  and  exquisite.  But  in 
theory  he  tears  the  veil  from  God  and  man  alike. 

To  illustrate,  I  need  only  quote  two  deliberate  and 
well-weighed  statements  of  his  riper  years.  How  could 
you  wither  man  more  terribly  than  in  the  following? 
"A  myriad  of  men  are  born;  they  labor  and  sweat  and 
struggle  for  bread;  they  squabble  and  scold  and  fight; 
they  scramble  for  little  mean  advantages  over  each 
other;  age  creeps  upon  them;  infirmities  follow;  shames 
and  humiliations  bring  down  their  prides  and  their 
vanities;  those  they  love  are  taken  from  them  and  the 
joy  of  life  is  turned  to  aching  grief.  The  burden  of 
pain,  care,  misery,  grows  heavier  year  by  year;  at 
length  ambition  is  dead;  pride  is  dead;  vanity  is  dead; 
longing  for  release  is  in  their  place.  It  comes  at  last  — 
the  only  unpoisoned  gift  earth  ever  had  for  them  — 
and  they  vanish  from  a  world  where  they  were  of  no 
consequence,  where  they  have  achieved  nothing,  where 
they  were  a  mistake  and  a  failure  and  a  foolishness; 
where  they  have  left  no  sign  that  they  have  existed  —  a 
world  which  will  lament  them  a  day  and  forget  them  , 
forever."  27 

For  those  who  thus  envisaged  man  there  used  to  be  a 
refuge  with  God.  Not  so  for  Mark.  Man  deserves  pity. 
God,  at  least  any  God  who  might  have  been  a  refuge, 
deserves  nothing  but  horror  and  contempt.  The  criti- 

25 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

cism  is,  to  be  sure,  put  into  the  mouth  of  Satan;  but 
Satan  would  have  been  shocked  at  it :  he  was  not  so  far 
advanced  as  Mark:  "A  God  who  could  make  good 
children  as  easily  as  bad,  yet  preferred  to  make  bad 
ones;  who  could  have  made  every  one  of  them  happy, 
yet  never  made  a  single  happy  one . .  .  who  mouths  jus- 
tice and  invented  hell  —  mouths  mercy  and  invented 
hell — mouths  Golden  Rules,  and  forgiveness  multiplied 
by  seventy  times  seven,  and  invented  hell;  who  mouths 
morals  to  other  people  and  has  none  himself;  who 
frowns  upon  crimes,  yet  commits  them  all;  who  created 
man  without  invitation,  then  tries  to  shuffle  the  re- 
sponsibility for  man's  acts  upon  man,  instead  of  honor- 
ably placing  it  where  it  belongs,  upon  himself;  and 
finally,  with  altogether  divine  obtuseness,  invites  this 
poor,  abused  slave  to  worship  him!"  28 

Can  it  be  considered  that  doctrines  such  as  this  are 
likely  to  be  beneficial  to  the  average  ignorant  reader  of 
democracy,  or  that  the  preacher  of  them  made  the 
,  world  wholly  better  by  his  presence?  It  is  true  that 
they  do  not  appear  so  openly  in  Mark's  best-known 
books,  true  that  the  practical  manliness  and  generosity 
of  Tom  and  Huck  largely  eclipse  them.  Yet  the  fierce 
pessimism  of  Pudd'nhead  Wilson  stares  at  the  reader 
from  the  popular  story  of  that  name  and  from  the 
equally  popular  "Following  the  Equator,"  and  even  in 
the  history  of  Tom  and  Huck  the  hand  that  slashes 
reverence  is  never  far  away. 

The  charge  of  evil  influence  fretted  Mark  as  much  as 
that  of  irreverence.  He  defends  himself  by  denying 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  personal  influence  from 

26 


MARK  TWAIN 

doctrines.  Our  happiness  and  unhappiness,  he  says, 
come  from  our  temperament,  not  from  our  belief,  which 
does  not  affect  them  in  the  slightest.  This  is,  of  course, 
an  exaggeration,  as  the  story  of  Mark's  own  life  shows. 
I  have  already  pointed  out  that  in  his  case  lack  of 
belief  did  not  mean  lack  of  morals;  but  it  does  in  many 
cases  and  lack  of  happiness  in  many  more.  One  can 
perhaps  best  speak  for  one's  self.  It  took  years  to 
shake  off  the  withering  blight  which  Mark's  satire  cast 
for  me  over  the  whole  art  of  Europe.  For  years  he 
spoiled  for  me  some  of  the  greatest  sources  of  relief  and 
joy.  How  many  never  shake  off  that  blight  at  all! 
And  again,  in  going  back  to  him  to  write  this  portrait, 
I  found  the  same  portentous,  shadowing  darkness 
stealing  over  me  that  he  had  spread  before.  I  lived  for 
ten  years  with  the  soul  of  Robert  E.  Lee  and  it  really 
made  a  little  better  man  of  me.  Six  months  of  Mark 
Twain  made  me  a  worse.  I  even  caught  his  haunting 
exaggeration  of  profanity.  And  I  am  fifty-six  years  old 
and  not  over-susceptible  to  infection.  What  can  he  not 
do  to  children  of  sixteen? 

It  is  precisely  his  irresistible  personal  charm  that 

:  makes  his  influence  overwhelming.  You  hate  Voltaire, 

*  you  love  Mark.  In  later  years  a  lady  called  upon  him 

to  express  her  enthusiasm.  She  wanted  to  kiss  his  hand. 

Imagine  the  humor  of  the  situation  —  for  Mark.  But 

he  accepted  it  with  perfect  dignity  and  perfect  tender 

seriousness.  "How  God  must  love  you !"  said  the  lady. 

"  I  hope  so,"  said  Mark  gently.  After  she  had  gone,  he 

observed  as  gently  and  without  a  smile,  "  I  guess  she 

has  n't  heard  of  our  strained  relations."^29  Who  could 

27 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

help  being  overcome  by  such  a  man  and  disbelieving  all 
he  disbelieved?  When  he  clasps  your  hand  and  lays  his 
arm  over  your  shoulder  and  whispers  that  life  is  a 
wretched,  pitiable  thing,  and  effort  useless,  and  hope 
worthless,  how  are  you  to  resist  him? 

So  my  final,  total  impression  of  Mark  is  desolating. 
If  his  admirers  rebel,  declare  this  utterly  false,  and 
insist  that  the  final  impression  is  laughter,  they  should 
remember  that  it  is  they  and  especially  Mark  himself 
who  are  perpetually  urging  us  to  take  him  seriously. 
Taken  seriously,  he  is  desolating.  I  cannot  escape  the 
image  of  a  person  groping  in  the  dark,  with  his  hands 
blindly  stretched  before  him,  ignorant  of  whence  he 
comes  and  whither  he  is  going,  yet  with  it  all  suddenly 
bursting  out  into  peals  of  laughter,  which,  in  such  a 
situation,  have  the  oddest  and  most  painful  effect. 

Yet,  whatever  view  you  take  of  him,  if  you  live  with 
him  long,  he  possesses  you  and  obsesses  you;  for  he  was 
a  big  man  and  he  had  a  big  heart. 


II 

HENRY  ADAMS 


CHRONOLOGY 

Henry  Adams. 

Born,  Boston,  Massachusetts,  February  16,  1838. 

Graduated  at  Harvard,  1858. 

Private  Secretary  to  his  father  in  England,  1861-1868. 

Assistant  Professor  at  Harvard,  1870-1877. 

Editor  of  the  North  American  Review,  1870-1876. 

Married  Marion  Hooper,  June  27,  1872. 

Wife  died,  December  6,  1885. 

History  of  United  States  published,  1889-1891. 

Education  of  Henry  Adams  privately  printed,  1906. 

Died,  Washington,  March  27,  1918. 


HENRY  ADAMS 


II 

HENRY  ADAMS 


IN  one  of  the  most  brilliant,  subtle,  and  suggestive 
autobiographies  ever  written,  Henry  Adams  informs  us 
that  he  was  never  educated  and  endeavors  to  explain 
why  his  varied  attempts  at  education  were  abortive. 
He  flings  a  trumpet  challenge  to  the  universe :  Here  am 
I,  Henry  Adams.  I  defy  you  to  educate  me.  You  can- 
not do  it.  Apparently,  by  his  own  reiterated  and  tri- 
umphant declaration,  the  universe,  after  the  most 
humiliating  efforts,  could  not. 

We  should  perhaps  sympathize  with  the  universe 
more  perfectly,  since  Adams  asks  no  sympathy,  if,  at 
the  beginning  of  his  narrative,  or  even  in  the  middle  of 
it,  he  told  us  what  he  means  by  education.  This  he 
never  does  with  any  completeness,  though  the  word 
occurs  probably  as  many  times  as  there  are  pages  in 
the  book.  When  he  has  advanced  more  than  halfway 
through  his  story,  he  remarks  casually  that,  for  a  mind 
worth  educating,  the  object  of  education  "should  be 
the  teaching  itself  how  to  react  with  vigor  and  econ- 
omy." 1  This  is  excellent,  so  far  as  it  goes;  but  it  is 
rather  vague;  it  hardly  seems  to  bear  upon  many  of 
the  attempted  methods  of  education,  and  it  does  not 
reappear  in  any  proportion  to  the  demands  upon  it.  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  if  in  the  beginning  the  bril- 

31 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

liant  autobiographer  had  set  himself  sincerely  and 
soberly  to  reflect  upon  the  word  he  was  to  use  so  often, 
he  would  have  saved  himself  much  repetition  and  the 
universe  some  anxiety,  though  he  would  have  deprived 
his  readers  of  a  vast  deai  of  entertainment.  As  it  is,  he 
pursues  an  illusory  phantom  through  a  world  of  inter- 
esting experiences.  Probably  a  dozen  times  in  the 
course  of  the  book  he  tells  us  that  Adams's  education 
was  ended.  But  a  few  pages  later  the  delightful  task  is 
taken  up  again,  until  one  comes  to  see  that  to  have 
been  educated,  really  and  finally,  would  have  been  the 
tragedy  of  his  life. 

At  any  rate,  nobody  could  furnish  a  prettier  keynote 
for  a  portrait  than  the  motto,  "always  in  search  of 
education."  f  Let  us  follow  the  search  through  all 
its  meanders  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  experience. 
From  birth  in  Boston  in  1838  to  death  in  Washington 
in  1918,  through  America,  Europe,  and  the  rest  of  the 
world,  through  teaching  and  authorship  and  politics 
and  diplomacy,  through  love  and  friendship  and  the 
widest  social  contact,  the  curious  and  subtle  soul,  with 
or  without  the  afterthought  of  education,  pursued  its 
complicated  course,  scattering  showers  of  brilliancy 
about  it,  leaving  memories  of  affection  behind  it,  and 
however  difficult  to  grasp  in  its  passage  and  elusive  in 
its  product,  always  and  everywhere  unfailingly  inter- 
esting. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that,  with  this  restless 
and  unsatisfied  spirit  the  period  which  sees  education 
finished  for  most  men  did  not  even  see  it  begun.  The 
infant  who  starts  with  the  definition  of  a  teacher  as  "a 

32 


HENRY  ADAMS 

man  employed  to  tell  lies  to  little  boys"  8  is  not  very 
likely  to  get  large  results  from  early  schooling.  The 
juvenile  Adams  surveyed  Boston  and  Quincy  and 
found  them  distinctly  wanting,  in  his  eyes,  though  not 
in  their  own.  "Boston  had  solved  the  universe;  or  had 
offered  and  realized  the  best  solution  yet  tried.  The 
problem  was  worked  out."  4  But  not  for  him. 

With  Harvard  College  the  results  were  little  better. 
He  fully  understood  that,  if  social  position  counted,  he 
ought  to  get  all  there  was  to  be  got.  "Of  money  he 
[Adams,  for  the  autobiography  is  sustained  throughout 
in  the  third  person]  had  not  much,  of  mind  not  more, 
but  he  could  be  quite  certain  that,  barring  his  own 
faults,  his  social  position  would  never  be  questioned."  5 
He  was  ready  to  admit  also  that  failure,  so  far  as  there 
was  failure,  was  owing  precisely  to  faults  of  his  own. 
"Harvard  College  was  a  good  school,  but  at  bottom 
what  the  boy  disliked  most  was  any  school  at  all.  He 
did  not  want  to  be  one  in  a  hundred  —  one  per  cent  of 
an  education."  6  Furthermore,  with  the  willingness  we 
all  have  to  acknowledge  weaknesses  we  should  not  wish 
others  to  find  hi  us,  he  declares  that  "he  had  not  wit  or 
scope  or  force.  Judges  always  ranked  him  beneath  a 
rival,  if  he  had  any;  and  he  believed  the  judges  were 
right."  7  But,  at  any  rate,  Harvard  did  not  educate 
him.  There  was  no  cooperation,  no  coordination. 
Everybody  stood  alone,  if  not  apart.  "It  seemed  a 
sign  of  force;  yet  to  stand  alone  is  quite  natural  when 
one  has  no  passions;  still  easier  when  one  has  no 
pains."  8  And  the  total  outcome  was  forlornly  inade- 
quate: "Socially  or  intellectually,  the  college  was  for 

33 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

him  negative  and  in  some  ways  mischievous.  The  most 
tolerant  man  of  the  world  could  not  see  good  in  the 
lower  habits  of  the  students,  but  the  vices  were  less 
harmful  than  the  virtues."  9 

Nobody  nowadays  would  anticipate  that  Germany 
could  do  what  Harvard  could  not.  But  some  persons 
then  cherished  amiable  delusions.  Young  Adams 
hoped  vaguely  that  Germany  might  educate  him. 
With  turns  of  phrase  that  recall  Mark  Twain  he  recog- 
nizes his  happy  moral  fitness  for  education  —  if  he 
could  get  it.  "He  seemed  well  behaved,  when  any  one 
was  looking  at  him;  he  observed  conventions,  when  he 
could  not  escape  them;  he  was  never  quarrelsome, 
towards  a  superior;  his  morals  were  apparently  good, 
and  his  moral  principles,  if  he  had  any,  were  not  known 
to  be  bad."  10 

On  this  admirable  substructure  even  Germany, 
however,  could  not  erect  the  desired  edifice.  Acting  on 
the  pompous  encouragement  of  Sumner,  who  said  to 
him,  "I  came  to  Berlin,  unable  to  say  a  word  in  the 
language;  and  three  months  later  when  I  went  away, 
I  talked  it  to  my  cabman,"  n  he  struggled  with  the 
difficulties  of  the  German  tongue  and  overcame  them 
by  methods  of  which  he  says  that  "three  months 
passed  in  such  fashion  would  teach  a  poodle  enough  to 
talk  with  a  cabman."  12  But  to  one  so  exacting,  the 
mere  learning  of  a  language  was  not  education,  though 
it  seems  so  to  some  people.  The  question  was,  what 
you  did  with  the  language  after  you  learned  it.  And 
here  Germany  failed  as  egregiously  as  Boston.  From 
careful  personal  contact,  Adams  concluded  that  the 

34 


HENRY  ADAMS 

education  in  the  public  schools  was  hopeless.  The 
memory  was  made  sodden  and  soggy  by  enormous 
burdens.  "No  other  faculty  than  the  memory  seemed 
to  be  recognized.  Least  of  all  was  any  use  made  of 
reason,  either  analytic,  synthetic,  or  dogmatic.  The 
German  government  did  not  encourage  reasoning."  13 
The  boys'  bodies  were  disordered  by  bad  air  and  ill- 
adjusted  exercise,  and  then  "they  were  required  to 
prepare  daily  lessons  that  would  have  quickly  broken 
down  strong  men  of  a  healthy  habit,  and  which  they 
could  learn  only  because  their  minds  were  morbid."  14 
It  was  hardly  likely  that  the  university  teaching  would 
produce  a  more  favorable  impression.  It  did  not. 
"The  professor  mumbled  his  comments;  the  students 
made,  or  seemed  to  make,  notes;  they  could  have 
learned  from  books  or  discussion  in  a  day  more  than 
they  could  learn  from  him  in  a  month,  but  they  must 
pay  his  fees,  follow  his  course,  and  be  his  scholars,  if 
they  wanted  a  degree.  To  an  American  the  result  was 
worthless."  15  When  the  time  came  for  leaving  Ger- 
many, our  student  departed  with  a  light  heart  and  a 
firm  resolution  that,  "wherever  else  he  might,  in  the 
infinities  of  space  and  time,  seek  for  education,  it 
should  not  be  again  in  Berlin."  16 

Many  earnest  persons  who  have  found  direct  educa- 
tion for  themselves  fruitless  and  unprofitable,  declare 
that  they  first  began  to  learn  when  they  began  to  teach 
and  that  in  the  education  of  others  they  discovered  the 
secret  of  their  own.  After  a  number  of  years  of  varied 
activity,  Adams  returned  to  Harvard  as  a  teacher  and 
had  an  opportunity  to  test  the  truth  of  this  principle, 

35 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

Viewed  objectively,  his  work  in  instructing  others 
seems  universally  commended.  His  pupils  praised  him, 
admired  him,  cherished  a  warm  personal  affection  for 
him.  He  did  not  try  to  burden  their  memories,  or  to 
fill  them  with  anv  theories  or  doctrines  of  his  own.  He 
made  them  think,  he  put  life  into  them,  intellectual 
life,  spiritual  life.  "In  what  way  Mr.  Adams  aroused 
my  slumbering  faculties,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  say,"  writes 
Mr.  Lodge;  "but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact."  17 
What  greater  function  or  service  can  a  teacher  perform 
than  this? 

But  for  the  educator  himself  teaching  was  no  more 
profitable  than  learning.  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  the 
responsibilities  of  his  task.  "A  parent  gives  life,  but  as 
parent,  gives  no  more.  A  murderer  takes  life,  but  his 
deed  stops  there.  A  teacher  affects  eternity;  he  can 
never  tell  where  his  influence  stops."  18  He  knew  his 
own  vast  ignorance,  as  his  pupils  did  not  know  theirs. 
"His  course  had  led  him  through  oceans  of  ignorance; 
he  had  tumbled  from  one  ocean  into  another."  19  But 
the  diffusion  of  ignorance,  even  conscientious,  did  not 
seem  to  him  an  object  worth  toiling  for.  Education,  as 
administered  at  Harvard  and  at  similar  institutions, 
appeared  to  lead  nowhere.  The  methods  were  wrong, 
the  aims  were  wrong,  if  there  were  any  aims.  That  it 
educated  scholars  was  very  doubtful;  that  it  did  not 
educate  teachers  was  certain.  "Thus  it  turned  out 
that,  of  all  his  many  educations,  Adams  thought  that 
of  school-teacher  the  thinnest."  20 

And  how  was  it  with  society,  with  the  wide  and 
varied  contact  with  men  and  women?  If  ever  man  had 

36 


HENRY  ADAMS 

the  chance  to  be  educated  by  this  means,  Henry  Adams 
was  the  man.  He  met  all  sorts  of  people  in  all  sorts  of 
places,  met  them  intimately,  not  only  at  balls  and  din- 
ners, but  in  unguarded  hours  around  the  domestic 
hearth.  As  with  the  teaching,  others'  impression  of  him 
is  enthusiastic.  He  was  not  perhaps  the  best  of  "mix- 
ers" in  the  American  sense,  was  shy  and  retiring  in  any 
general  company;  but  he  was  kindly,  gracious,  sympa- 
thetic, full  of  response,  full  of  stimulation,  full  of  spar- 
kling and  not  domineering  wit.  When  he  and  Mrs. 
Adams  kept  open  house  in  Washington,  it  was  well  said 
of  them :  "Nowhere  in  the  United  States  was  there  then, 
or  has  there  since  been,  such  a  salon  as  theirs.  Sooner 
or  later,  everybody  who  possessed  real  quality  crossed 
the  threshold  of  1603  H  Street."  21  And  again,  "To  his 
intimates  —  and  these  included  women  of  wit  and 
charm  and  distinction  —  the  hours  spent  in  his  study 
or  at  his  table  were  the  best  that  Washington  could 
give."  22 

But,  as  with  the  teaching,  the  man's  own  view  of  his 
general  human  relations  is  less  satisfactory.  The  play 
of  motives  is  interesting,  certainly;  but  what  can  he 
learn  from  it,  what  can  it  do  for  his  education?  "All 
that  Henry  Adams  ever  saw  in  man  was  a  reflection  of 
his  own  ignorance."  23  The  great  obstacle  for  sensitive 
natures  to  all  social  pleasure,  the  immense  intrusion  of 
one's  self,  was  always  present  to  him,  never  entirely  got 
rid  of.  "His  little  mistakes  in  etiquette  or  address 
made  him  writhe  with  torture."  24  And  of  one  concrete, 
tormenting  incident  he  says,  "This  might  seem  humor- 
ous to  some,  but  to  him  the  world  turned  ashes."  "  The 

37 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

annoyances  were  great  and  the  compensations  trifling. 
Though  he  touched  many  hands,  heard  many  voices, 
looked  deep  into  many  eyes,  he  drifted  through  the 
world  in  a  dream  solitude.  When  he  was  in  Cambridge, 
he  bewailed  the  isolation  of  professors.  "All  these  bril- 
liant men  were  greedy  for  companionship,  all  were 
famished  for  want  of  it."  26  But  the  greed  and  the  want 
haunted  him  everywhere.  I  do  not  see  that  they  were 
ever  satisfied. 

With  women  he  fared  somewhat  better  than  with 
men,  and  few  men  have  been  more  frank  about  ac- 
knowledging their  debt  to  the  other  sex.  "  In  after  life 
he  made  a  general  law  of  experience  —  no  woman  had 
ever  driven  him  wrong;  no  man  had  ever  driven  him 
right."  27  And  at  all  times  and  on  all  occasions  he  paid 
his  debt  with  abundance  of  praise,  tempered,  of  course, 
with  such  reserve  as  was  to  be  expected  from  one  who 
had  all  his  life  been  seeking  education  and  had  not 
found  it.  To  be  sure,  he  readily  admits  entire  ignorance 
as  to  the  character,  motives,  and  purposes  of  woman- 
kind. "The  study  of  history  is  useful  to  the  historian 
by  teaching  him  his  ignorance  of  women;  and  the  mass 
of  this  ignorance  crushes  one  who  is  familiar  enough 
with  what  are  called  historical  sources  to  realize  how 
few  women  have  ever  been  known."  28  But  such  admis- 
sion of  ignorance,  especially  for  one  who  triumphed  in 
ignorance  on  all  subjects,  only  made  it  easier  to  recog- 
nize and  celebrate  the  charm.  One  could  trifle  with  the 
ignorance  perpetually,  elaborate  it  and  complicate  it, 
till  it  took  the  form  of  the  most  exquisite  comprehen- 
sion. "The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  woman  and,  by 

38 


HENRY  ADAMS 

common  agreement  since  the  time  of  Adam,  it  is  the 
most  complex  and  arduous."  " 

Was  it  a  question  of  the  woman  of  America?  One 
could  write  novels,  like  "Esther"  and  "Democracy," 
in  which  the  woman  of  America  is  made  a  miracle  of 
cleverness  and  is  at  any  rate  more  real  than  anything 
else.  Or',  in  intimate  table-talk  with  great  statesmen 
and  their  wives,  one  could  calmly  insist  that  "the 
American  man  is  a  failure:  You  are  all  failures.  .  .  . 
Would  n't  we  all  elect  Mrs.  Lodge  Senator  against 
Cabot?  Would  the  President  have  a  ghost  of  a  chance 
if  Mrs.  Roosevelt  ran  against  him?  "  80  But  unquestion- 
ably one  treads  safer  ground  and  is  less  exposed  to  the 
temptation  of  irony,  if  one  goes  back  five  hundred  years 
and  adores  the  Virgin  of  Chartres.  With  her,  as  Mark 
Twain  found  with  Joan  of  Arc,  one  can  elevate  the  fem- 
inine ideal  to  a  Gothic  sublimity  without  too  inconven- 
ient intrusion  of  harsh  daylight. 

When  we  reduce  these  abstract  personal  contacts  to 
concrete  individuality,  we  find,  or  divine,  Adams  at  his 
best,  at  his  most  human.  "Friends  are  born,  not  made, 
and  Henry  never  mistook  a  friend."  S1  For  all  his  vast 
acquaintance,  these  friendships  were  not  many,  and 
they  seem  to  have  been  deep  and  true  and  lasting.  To 
be  sure,  he  complains  that  politics  are  a  dangerous  dis- 
solvent here  as  elsewhere.  "A  friend  in  power  is  a 
friend  lost."  32  But  his  love  for  Hay  and  for  Clarence 
King,  not  to  speak  of  others,  was  evidently  an  immense 
element  in  his  emotional  life,  and  if  they  did  not  give 
him  education,  they  did  what  was  even  more  difficult 
and  vastly  better,  made  him  forget  it.  Moreover,  as  is 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

indicated  in  Mrs.  La  Farge's  charming  study  of  her 
uncle,  there  was  a  peculiar  tenderness  hi  Adams's  in- 
timate personal  relations,  very  subtle,  very  elusive, 
very  delicate,  but  very  pervading.  As  is  the  case  with 
many  shy  and  self-contained  natures,  this  tenderness 
showed  most  in  his  contact  with  the  young.33  But  he 
had,  further,  a  peculiar  gift  of  eliciting  by  his  imagina- 
tive sympathy,  affectionate  confidences  from  young 
and  old.34 

To  what  we  may  assume  to  have  been  the  deepest 
love  of  all  Adams  himself  makes  not  the  faintest  refer- 
ence. His  wooing  and  marriage  are  not  once  mentioned 
in  the  autobiography,  but  are  lost  in  the  shadowy 
twenty  years  which  he  passes  over  with  a  word.  Some 
dream  attachments  of  early  childhood  are  touched  with 
delicate  sarcasm.  Beyond  this,  love  as  a  personal  mat- 
ter does  not  enter  into  his  wide  analysis.  From  the 
comments  of  others  we  infer  that,  although  he  had  no 
children,  his  marriage  gave  him  as  much  as  any  human 
relation  can  and  more  than  most  marriages  do,  while 
his  wife's  death  brought  him  deep  and  abiding  sorrow. 
But  we  may  safely  conclude  that  marriage  did  not  give 
him  that  mysterious  will-o'-the  wisp,  education,  since, 
after  Mrs.  Adams's  death,  we  find  him  seeking  it  as 
restlessly  and  as  unprofitably  as  ever. 

So,  having  traced  his  search  through  the  complicated 
phases  of  the  more  personal  side  of  life,  let  us  follow  it 
in  the  even  more  complicated  development  of  the  intel- 
ligence. 


40 


HENRY  ADAMS 

ii 

IT  would  seem  as  if  few  human  callings  could  afford  a 
wider  basis  for  education  in  the  broadest  sense  than 
diplomacy,  and  Adams  had  the  advantage  of  all  that 
diplomacy  could  offer.  His  father  cared  for  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Union  in  London  all  through  the  fierce 
strain  of  the  Civil  War,  and  Henry,  as  his  father's  sec- 
retary, saw  the  inside  working  of  men's  hearts  and 
passions  which  that  strain  carried  with  it.  He  watched 
everything  curiously,  gained  a  fascinating  insight  into 
the  peculiarities  of  English  statesmanship,  drew  and 
left  to  posterity  profound  and  delicate  studies  of 
Palmerston,  Russell,  Gladstone,  and  other  figures, 
some  not  soon  to  be  forgotten  and  some  forgotten  al- 
ready. He  sketched  with  a  sure  and  vivid  touch  scenes 
of  historic  or  human  significance,  like  that  of  his  ap- 
pearance in  society  after  the  capture  of  Vicksburg. 
Monckton  Milnes,  who  loved  the  North,  was  there; 
Delane,  the  editor  of  the  Times,  who  did  not  love  the 
North,  was  there.  Milnes  rushed  at  Adams  and  kissed 
him  on  both  cheeks.  Some  might  imagine  "that  such 
publicity  embarrassed  a  private  secretary  who  came 
from  Boston  and  called  himself  shy;  but  that  evening, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  happened  not  to  be 
thinking  of  himself.  He  was  thinking  of  Delane,  whose 
eye  caught  his,  at  the  moment  of  Milnes's  embrace. 
Delane  probably  regarded  it  as  a  piece  of  Milnes's 
foolery ;  he  had  never  heard  of  young  Adams,  and  never 
dreamed  of  his  resentment  at  being  ridiculed  in  the 
Times;  he  had  no  suspicion  of  the  thought  floating  in  the 

41 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

mind  of  the  American  minister's  son,  for  the  British 
mind  is  the  slowest  of  all  minds,  as  the  files  of  the  Times 
proved,  and  the  capture  of  Vicksburg  had  not  yet  pene- 
trated Delane's  thick  cortex  of  fixed  ideas."  35  Saint- 
Simon  could  not  have  done  it  better. 

But  as  to  education  for  himself,  the  private  secretary 
got  nothing.  In  fact,  these  repeated,  progressive,  futile 
efforts  seemed  only  to  be  carrying  him  beyond  zero  into 
the  forlorn  region  of  negative  quantity.  He  found  out 
that  he  was  incurably  shy,  reserved,  unfitted  for  the 
obtrusive  ^)nflicts  of  life.  He  tells  us  that  he  never  had 
an  enemy  or  a  quarrel.  But  without  quarrels  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  win  victories,  even  in  the  courteous  atmosphere 
of  diplomacy.  The  result  of  his  English  experience 
tended  to  little  but  "the  total  derision  and  despair  of 
the  lifelong  effort  for  education."  86 

With  practical  politics  at  home  in  America  it  was  the 
same.  Only  here  Adams,  warned  by  varied  observation 
of  others,  made  no  attempt  himself  at  even  indirect 
personal  action.  It  became  obvious  to  him  at  a  very 
early  age  that  the  sharp  and  clear  decision  on  matters 
that  cannot  be  decided,  which  is  the  first  thing  re- 
quired of  all  politicians,  was  quite  impossible  for  him, 
let  alone  the  lightning  facility  in  changing  such  deci- 
sions which  gives  the  fine  finish  to  a  successful  politi- 
cian's career.  He  had  the  true  conservative's  dislike  of 
innovation,  not  because  he  was  satisfied  with  things 
as  they  are,  but  because  he  had  a  vast  dread  of  things 
as  they  might  be.  "The  risk  of  error  in  changing  a 
long-established  course  seems  always  greater  to  me 
than  .the  chance  of  correction,  unless  the  elements 

42 


HENRY  ADAMS 

are  known  more  exactly  than  is  possible  in  human 
affairs."  37 

But  if  he  did  not  seek  education,  where  some  think 
it  is  most  surely  to  be  found,  in  intense  personal  action, 
at  least  he  was  never  tired  of  observing  the  complex- 
ities and  perplexities  of  American  political  life.  And  if 
these  did  not  give  him  education,  they  gave  him  amuse- 
ment, as  they  cannot  fail  to  do  his  readers  in  his  inter- 
pretation of  them.  He  watched  the  doublings  and 
twistings  and  turnings  of  two  generations  of  statesmen 
in  their  efforts  to  harmonize  their  own  ambition  with 
the  welfare  of  democracy,  and  to  him  "their  sufferings 
were  a  long  delight," 38  while  he  probed  their  souls  with 
the  keenest  and  most  searching  analysis.  His  own 
conclusion  as  to  the  workings  of  American  government 
was  not  enthusiastic.  Cabinets  were  timid,  congresses 
were  helter-skelter,  presidents  were  inefficient,  even 
when  well-intentioned,  and  one  could  not  be  sure  that 
they  were  always  well-intentioned.  What  wonder  that 
the  outcome  of  observation  so  dispassionate  was  hardly 
educative  for  the  observer!  It  certainly  is  not  so  for 
his  readers,  except  hi  the  sense  of  disillusionment. 

From  the  hard,  harsh,  clear-cut  doings  of  practical 
America,  the  inquiring,  acquiring  spirit  naturally 
turned  at  times  to  vaguer  portions  of  the  world,  set 
itself  to  discover  whether  education  might  not  come 
from  travel  and  pure  receptivity,  since  it  absolutely 
refused  to  emanate  from  the  strenuous  action  of  com- 
mon life.  The  results,  if  hardly  more  satisfactory,  were 
always  diverting.  Rome?  Oh,  the  charm  of  Rome! 
But  it  could  not  well  be  a  profitable  charm:  "One's 

43 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

personal  emotions  in  Rome  . . .  must  be  hurtful,  else 
they  could  have  been  so  intense."  l9  And  again,  Rome 
was  "the  last  place  under  the  sun  for  educating  the 
young;  yet  it  was,  by  common  consent,  the  only  spot 
that  the  young  —  of  either  sex  and  every  race  — 
passionately,  perversely,  wickedly  loved."  40  It  might 
be  supposed  that  at  least  travel  would  break  up  con- 
servatism, abolish  fixed  habits  of  thought  and  life, 
supple  the  soul  as  well  as  the  limbs,  and  make  it  more 
quickly  receptive  of  innovation  and  experiment.  Not 
with  this  soul,  which  found  itself  even  more  distrustful 
of  change  abroad  than  at  home.  "The  tourist  was  the 
great  conservative  who  hated  novelty  and  adored 
dirt."  41 

Such  a  consequence  might  perhaps  be  expected  from 
wandering  in  the  Far  East,  where  the  flavor  of  dreamy 
repose,  whether  in  man  or  nature,  infected  everything. 
But  one  would  have  thought  that  the  bright,  crystal, 
sparkling  atmosphere  of  the  American  West  might 
animate,  enliven,  induce  a  brisker  courage  and  a  more 
adventurous  effort  at  existence.  Taken  beyond  middle 
age,  however,  it  did  not  induce  effort,  but  only  restless- 
ness :  "  Only  a  certain  intense  cerebral  restlessness  sur- 
vived which  no  longer  responded  to  sensual  stimulants; 
one  was  driven  from  beauty  to  beauty  as  though  art 
were  a  trotting-match."  42 

And  if  the  sunshine  of  the  Western  plains  could  not 
inspire  ardor,  it  was  not  to  be  imagined  that  the  gloomy 
silences  of  the  Arctic  Circle  would  produce  it.  They 
did  not;  they  merely  fed  far-reaching,  profound,  and 
futile  reflection  on  the  battle  of  modern  practical  sci- 

44 


HENRY  ADAMS 

ence  with  the  old,  dead,  dumb,  withering  forces  of 
nature.  "An  installation  of  electric  lighting  and  tele- 
phones led  tourists  close  up  to  the  polar  ice-cap,  beyond 
the  level  of  the  magnetic  pole;  and  there  the  newer 
Teuf  elsdrockh  sat  dumb  with  surprise,  and  glared  at  the 
permanent  electric  lights  of  Hammerfest."  4* 

From  all  this  vast  peregrination  the  conclusion  is 
"that  the  planet  offers  hardly  a  dozen  places  where  an 
elderly  man  can  pass  a  week  alone  without  ennui,  and 
none  at  all  where  he  can  pass  a  year."  44 

Was  it  better  with  the  wanderings  of  the  spirit  than 
with  those  of  the  flesh?  Let  us  see.  How  was  it  with 
art,  the  world's  wide,  infinitely  varied,  inexhaustible 
human  product  of  beauty?  Surely  no  man  ever  had 
better  opportunity  to  absorb  and  assimilate  all  that  art 
has  power  to  give  to  any  one.  Yet  Adams's  references  to 
the  influence  of  art  in  general  are  vague  and  obscure. 
He  can  indeed  multiply  paradox  on  that,  as  on  any 
subject,  indefinitely.  "For  him,  only  the  Greek,  the 
Italian,  or  the  French  standards  had  claims  to  respect, 
and  the  barbarism  of  Shakespeare  was  as  flagrant  as  to 
Voltaire;  but  his  theory  never  affected  his  practice  .  .  . 
he  read  his  Shakespeare  as  the  Evangel  of  conservative 
Christian  anarchy,  neither  very  conservative  nor  very 
Christian,  but  stupendously  anarchistic."  46  But  tried 
by  the  one  final,  ever-repeated  test,  all  that  art  offers 
is  about  as  unsatisfactory  as  American  politics  or 
tropical  dreams.  "  Art  was  a  superb  field  for  education, 
but  at  every  turn  he  met  the  same  old  figure,  like  a 
battered  and  illegible  signpost  that  ought  to  direct  him 
to  the  next  station  but  never  did."  4* 

45 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

One  phase  only  of  the  vast  outpouring  of  artistic 
beauty  did  engage  the  curious  student,  did  for  the  time 
distract  him  wholly,  involve  and  entangle  his  restless 
spirit  in  its  fascinating  spell,  the  mediaeval  art  which  he 
has  analyzed  in  "Mont-Saint-Michel  and  Chartres." 
The  strange  glamour,  the  puzzling  and  elusive  sugges- 
tion and  intimation,  of  Gothic  architecture,  the  com- 
plex subtleties  of  Christian  thought  and  feeling,  as 
illustrated  and  illuminated  by  that  architecture,  seem 
to  have  held  him  with  an  almost  inexplicable  charm; 
and  the  insinuating,  absorbing,  dominating  figure  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  lit  at  once  and  shadowed  by  the 
glimmering  glory  of  old  unmatchable  stained  windows, 
gave  him  something,  at  least  offered  him  the  tantalizing 
image  of  something,  that  modern  thought  and  modern 
wit  and  modern  companionship  could  never  supply. 

Yet  even  here  the  final  impression  is  that  of  remote- 
ness and  unreality.  What  can  a  living  soul  get  from  a 
dead  religion?  "The  religion  is  dead  as  Demeter, 
and  its  art  alone  survives  as,  on  the  whole,  the  highest 
expression  of  man's  thought  or  emotion."  47  Even  to 
feel  the  art,  you  have  to  make  yourself  other  than  you 
are;  and  modern  nerves,  unstrung  by  the  wide  pursuit 
of  education,  cannot  stand  this  pressure  long.  "Any 
one  can  feel  it  who  will  only  consent  to  feel  like  a 
child.  . . .  Any  one  willing  to  try  could  feel  it  like  the 
child,  reading  new  thought  without  end  into  the  art  he 
has  studied  a  hundred  times;  but  what  is  still  more 
convincing,  he  could  at  will,  in  an  instant,  shatter  the 
whole  art  by  calling  into  it  a  single  motive  of  his 
own."  48 

46 


HENRY  ADAMS 

So  we  must  infer  that  the  charm  of  this  mediaeval 
interlude  was  largely  owing  to  its  remoteness,  to  the 
very  fact  that  it  was  a  world  of  dream  and  only  dream, 
requiring  of  the  visitor  none  of  the  vulgar  positive 
action  demanded  by  twentieth-century  Washington. 
And  the  very  remoteness  that  made  the  charm  took  it 
away;  for  souls  of  the  twentieth  century  must  live  in 
the  twentieth  century,  after  all. 

No  one  lived  in  it  more  energetically  than  Adams,  so 
far  as  mere  thinking  was  concerned.  To  turn  from  his 
intimate  acquaintance  with  mediaeval  erudition  to  his 
equally  intimate  contact  with  the  most  recent  move- 
ment of  science  is  indeed  astonishing.  His  curious 
youth  seized  upon  the  theories  of  Darwin,  twisted 
them,  teased  them,  tormented  them,  to  make  them 
furnish  the  vanishing  specific  which  he  believed  himself 
to  be  eternally  seeking.  They  did  not  satisfy  him.  As 
time  went  on,  he  found  that  they  did  not  satisfy  others, 
and  he  plunged  more  deeply  and  more  widely  into 
others'  dissatisfaction,  in  order  to  confirm  his  own. 
The  patient  erudition  of  Germany,  the  logical  vivacity 
of  France,  the  persistent  experimenting  of  England,  all 
interested  him,  and  from  all  he  turned  away  as  rich  — 
and  as  poor  —  as  he  set  out.  No  one  has  more  gift  than 
he  at  making  scientific  speculation  attractive,  alive,  at 
giving  it  almost  objective  existence,  so  that  you  seem 
to  be  moving,  not  among  quaint  abstractions  of 
thought,  but  among  necessary  realities,  perverse,  per- 
sistent creatures  that  may  make  life  worth  living  or 
not.  He  embodies  theory  till  it  tramps  the  earth.  He 
treats  the  pterodactyl  and  the  ichthyosaurus  with  the 

47 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

same  intimate  insolence  as  a  banker  in  State  Street  or 
an  Adams  in  Quincy,  and  analyzes  the  weaknesses  of 
terebratula  with  as  much  pride  as  those  of  his  grand- 
father. 

Yet  when  you  reflect,  you  think  yourself  at  liberty 
to  feel  a  little  discontent  with  him,  since  he  admits  so 
much  with  others.  His  exposition  of  all  these  scientific 
questions  is  brilliant,  paradoxical,  immensely  enter- 
taining. But  no  one  makes  you  perceive  more  clearly 
the  difference  between  brilliancy  and  lucidity.  In  mild, 
steady  sunlight  you  can  work  out  your  way  with  plod- 
ding confidence;  but  a  succession  of  dazzling  flashes 
only  makes  darkness  more  intolerable.  Adams  can 
double  the  weight  of  unsolved  problems  upon  you.  He 
cannot  —  at  least  he  rarely  does  —  even  state  a  prob- 
lem with  consistent,  clear,  orderly  method,  much  less 
follow  out  the  long  solution  of  one.  His  most  instruc- 
tive effort  in  this  line  is  the  "Letter  to  Teachers  of 
American  History."  Here  are  two  hundred  pages  of 
glittering  pyrotechnic.  You  read  it,  and  are  charmed 
and  excited  and  shocked  and  left  breathless  at  the  end. 
What  is  the  tangible  result?  That  the  investigations  of 
modern  science  make  it  extremely  doubtful  whether 
mankind  has  progressed  within  the  limits  of  recorded 
history,  or  ever  will  progress  or  do  anything  but  retro- 
grade, and  that  this  famous  discovery  makes  the  teach- 
ing of  history  extremely  difficult.  Well,  it  is  another 
added  difficulty,  if  the  discovery  is  correct,  which 
Adams  would  be  the  last  to  affirm  with  positiveness. 
But  it  might  have  been  stated  in  a  few  words,  instead 
of  being  amplified  and  complicated  with  endless  repeti- 

48 


HENRY  ADAMS 

tion,  all  the  more  puzzling  for  its  brilliancy.  And  among 
the  manifold  serious  troubles  of  a  teacher  of  history, 
this  one  almost  disappears  from  its  very  remoteness. 
Of  those  far  more  pressing,  difficulties  of  treatment, 
difficulties  of  method,  difficulties  of  practical  interest, 
Adams  discusses  not  a  single  one.  I  doubt  if  any 
teacher  of  history  ever  laid  down  the  "  Letter"  with  the 
feeling  that  he  had  been  helped  in  any  possible  way. 

Of  the  more  abstract  metaphysical  thinking  that 
fills  the  latter  part  of  the  "Education"  and  of  "Mont- 
Saint-Michel,"  the  same  may  be  said  as  of  the  science. 
Its  breadth  is  astonishing  and  its  brilliancy  incom- 
parable. Every  typical  intelligence  from  Aristotle  to 
Spencer  is  touched  upon,  with  an  especially  long  stop 
at  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  to  sum  up  and  crystallize  the 
whole.  At  first  one  is  humbly  impressed,  then  one  is 
bewildered,  then  one  becomes  slightly  sceptical.  The 
result  of  it  all  seems  too  fluid,  evanescent.  Take  the 
mysterious  theory  of  acceleration.  Through  various 
preparatory  chapters  we  are  apparently  led  up  to  this. 
Suddenly  we  find  that  we  have  passed  it,  and  we  rub 
our  eyes.  The  truth  is,  when  analyzed,  the  theory  of 
acceleration  means  that  the  nineteenth  century  moved 
rather  faster  than  the  thirteenth.  But  surely  it  needs 
no  ghost  come  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  tell  us  that. 
Nor  does  Adams's  latest  philosophical  work,  "The 
Rule  of  Phase  Applied  to  History,"  improve  matters 
much,  though  the  idea  of  acceleration  is  further  devel- 
oped in  it.  The  argument  here  is  condensed  after  a 
fashion  that  would  seem  of  itself  to  make  lucidity  dif- 
ficult. But  when  one  reflects  upon  such  a  tangle  of 

49 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

misleading  analogies,  one  is  inclined  to  feel  that  fuller 
elaboration  would  only  have  left  the  lack  of  lucidity 
more  apparent. 

And  we  are  forced  to  conclude,  with  the  metaphysics, 
as  with  the  science,  that  the  thinking  is  more  stimu- 
lating than  satisfying,  more  brilliant  than  profound. 
There  is  an  acute,  curious,  far-reaching,  unfailing  in- 

i  terest.  There  is  not  systematic,  patient,  logical,  clari- 

jfying  order  and  method. 

Also,  with  the  lack  of  method,  there  is  another 
spiritual  defect,  perhaps  even  more  serious.  The  ex- 
position of  all  these  high  philosophical  ideas  is  more 
paradoxical  than  passionate,  and  the  reason  is  that  the 
thinker  himself  had  not  passion,  had  not  the  intense, 
overpowering  earnestness  that  alone  gives  metaphysi- 
cal speculations  value,  if  not  for  their  truth,  at  any  rate 
for  their  influence.  No  doubt  something  of  the  impres- 
sion of  dilettantism  is  due  to  the  inheritance  of  New 
England  reserve  which  Adams  never  entirely  shook  off. 
But  the  defect  goes  deeper,  and  one  cannot  help  feeling 
that  he  approaches  the  profoundest  questions  of  life 
and  death  in  an  attitude  of  amused  curiosity.  One 
must  not  take  passages  like  the  following  too  literally, 
and  one  must  realize  that  years  somewhat  modified  the 
flippancy  of  youth;  but  one  must  take  them  literally 
enough:  "Henry  Adams  was  the  first  in  an  infinite 
series  to  discover  and  admit  to  himself  that  he  really 
did  not  care  whether  truth  was,  or  was  not,  true.  He 
did  not  even  care  that  it  should  be  proved  true,  unless 
the  process  were  new  and  amusing.  He  was  a  Darwin- 
ian for  fun."  4* 

50 


HENRY  ADAMS 

As  to  the  last  and  most  practical  of  all  these  varied 
spiritual  attempts  at  education,  the  attempt  —  and 
the  achievement  —  of  authorship,  one's  conclusion  is 
much  as  with  the  others.  The  novels,  the  biographies, 
above  all,  the  "History  of  the  United  States,"  are 
among  the  most  brilliant  productions  of  their  time. 
They  glitter  with  epigrams  and  dazzle  with  paradoxes 
and  puzzle  with  new  interpretations  and  make  one 
think  as  one  has  rarely  thought  about  the  problems  of 
American  life  and  character.  Of  them  all  the  "  History  " 
is  the  most  important  and  the  most  enduring.  It  is 
fascinating  in  parts,  almost  abnormally  entertaining 
in  parts.  But  even  hi  the  "History,"  as  a  whole,  there  is 
a  lack  of  broad,  structural  conception,  a  tendency  to 
obscure  large  movement  by  detail,  sometimes  divert- 
ing and  sometimes  tedious. 

Moreover,  I  cannot  help  feeling  the  defect  in  Adams's 
authorship  that  I  felt  in  his  general  thinking,  although 
authorship  was  the  most  serious  interest  of  his  life.  He 
spent  days  in  dusty  muniment  rooms,  fortified  his 
pages  with  vast  labor  and  consistent  effort,  tried  his 
best  to  make  himself  and  others  think  that  he  was 
an  earnest  student  of  history.  Yet,  after  all  his  labor 
and  all  his  effort,  I  at  least  cannot  escape  the  impres- 
sion that  he  was  an  author  "for  fun." 

in 

I  IT  is  precisely  in  this  lack  of  seriousness  that  I  find 

1  the  clue  to  the  failure  of  Adams's  whole  colossal  search 

1  for  education,  so  far  as  the  education  was  anything 

tangible  and  even  the  search  was  in  any  way  serious. 

51 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

I  must  repeat  xuy  ample  allowance  for  the  self-depre- 
ciation common  to  most  autobiographies  as  well  as  for 
the  dignified  and  commendable  reserve  with  which  he 
tells  his  story.  Both  his  brother  and  his  niece  insist 
upon  his  extreme  shyness  and  reluctance  to  intrude 
his  own  experiences.  But,  after  all,  reserve  is  rather 
out  of  place  in  confessions  so  free  and  intimate  as 
those  of  the  "Education";  and  through  all  reserve  the 
exposure  of  the  nner,  the  inmost,  life  is  sufficiently 
complete  to  show  that  the  perpetual  demand  for  ed- 
ucation was  fatal  to  any  overpowering  ecstasy.  When 
he  was  a  boy  in  college,  his  elders  remarked  that  one 
of  his  compositions  was  notable  for  lack  of  enthusiasm. 
"The  young  man — always  in  search  of  education — 
asked  himself  whether,  setting  rhetoric  aside,  this 
absence  of  enthusiasm  was  a  defect  or  a  merit."  *° 
Whichever  it  was,  it  accompanied  him  always  and  is 
the  main  key  to  his  vast,  absorbing  work.  What  shall 
be  said  of  a  man  who  in  recounting  his  own  life  up  to 
thirty  makes  no  single  mention  of  having  his  pulses 
stirred,  of  being  hurled  out  of  himself  by  nature,  or 
love,  or  poetry,  or  God?  What  can  any  education  be 
that  is  not  built  on  some  tumultuous  experience  of  one 
or  all  of  these? 

Take  nature.  In  Adams's  later  life  there  are  touches 
that  show  that  nature  must  always  have  had  its  hold 
on  him.  When  he  returns  from  Europe  in  1868,  he 
finds  "the  overpowering  beauty  and  sweetness  of  the 
Maryland  autumn  almost  unendurable  for  its  strain 
on  one  who  had  toned  his  life  down  to  the  November 
grays  and  browns  of  Northern  Europe."  61  Yet  note 

52 


HENRY  ADAMS 

even  here  that  it  is  the  unendurable  side  of  passion  and 
ecstasy  that  cling.  And  the  same  sense  of  superiority 
and  wilful  indifference  peers  through  his  wonderful 
rendering  of  still  later  natural  experiences:  "In  the 
long  summer  days  one  found  a  sort  of  saturated  green 
pleasure  in  the  forests,  and  gray  infinity  of  rest  in  the 
little  twelfth-century  churches  that  lined  them." 52 

So  with  art.  We  have  seen  that  he  was  entranced 
with  the  Middle  Ages,  and  we  have  guessed  that  this 
was  precisely  because  of  their  unreality  to  a  man  of  the 
modem  spirit.  At  any  rate,  there  is  no  evidence  any- 
where that  he  was  rapt  or  carried  away  by  any  other 
art  whatever,  either  the  sculpture  of  Greece,  or  the 
painting  of  the  fifteenth  century  or  of  the  nineteenth. 
"All  styles  are  good  which  amuse,"  he  says.53  The 
Gothic  and  the  Virgin  amused  him.  When  he  was  first 
overwhelmed  by  the  sense  of  Beethoven's  musk,  he 
describes  this  sense  in  a  fashion  intensely  characteristic 
(italics  mine)  as  "so  astonished  at  its  own  existence, 
that  he  could  not  credit  it,  and  watched  it  as  some- 
thing apart,  accidental,  and  not  to  be  trusted."  64  With 
poetry  it  is  the  same.  His  niece  tells  us  he  was  "pas- 
sionately fond  of  poetry."  55  I  should  have  taken 
"curiously  fond"  to  be  nearer  the  mark.  In  any  event, 
the  fondness  does  not  appear  in  his  writings.  He  en- 
larges at  huge  length  upon  the  epic  and  lyric  produc- 
tions of  the  Middle  Ages.  Except  for  some  elaborate 
analyses  of  Petrarch  —  and  this  again  is  singularly 
characteristic  —  in  "Esther"  and  "The  Life  of  George 
Cabot  Lodge,"  the  poetry  of  the  world  might  never  have 
existed,  for  all  the  account  his  education  takes  of  it. 

53 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS    . 

I  have  before  recognized  that  his  utter  failure  to  deal 
with  the  educative  power  of  human  love  may  be  owing 
to  a  delicacy  that  we  are  bound  to  respect.  But  surely 
the  love  of  God  might"  be  handled  without  kid  gloves. 
Adams  hardly  handles  it  with  or  without  them.  Of 
course  in  such  an  extensive  syllabus  of  non-education 
God  has  his  place,  with  pteraspis  and  terebratula,  and 
is  treated  with  the  same  familiarity  as  those  distant 
ancestors,  and  the  same  remoteness.  Adams  also  in- 
sists (italics  mine)  that  "Religion  is,  or  ought  to  be,  a 
feeling,"  66  and  in  many  pages  of  "Mont-Saint-Michel" 
he  shows  an  extraordinary  power  of  entering  into  that 
feeling  by  intellectual  analysis.  But  when  he  seeks  for 
the  feeling  in  himself,  the  result  seems  to  be  much 
what  he  describes  when  he  seeks  it  in  the  religious  press 
of  the  world  about  him:  "He  very  gravely  doubted, 
from  his  aching  consciousness  of  religious  void,  whether 
any  large  fraction  of  society  cared  for  a  future  life, 
or  even  for  the  present  one,  thirty  years  hence.  Not 
an  act,  or  an  expression,  or  an  image,  showed  depth 
of  faith  or  hope."  67  As  a  factor  in  education,  God 
counted  for  little  more  than  terebratula. 

The  truth  is,  that  in  this  infinitely  reiterated  demand 
for  education  there  is  something  too  much  of  the  ego- 
tism which  Henry  Adams  inherited  from  his  dis- 
tinguished great-grandfather  and  which  had  not  been 
altogether  dissipated  by  the  intermixture  of  two  gen- 
erations of  differing  blood,  it  being  always  recognized 
that  egotism  is  perfectly  compatible  with  shyness, 
reserve,  and  even  self-effacement.  In  the  preface  to  his 
autobiography  Adams  points  out  that  the  great  les- 

54 


HENRY  ADAMS 

son  of  Rousseau  to  the  autobiographer  was  to  beware 
of  the  Ego.  In  consequence  Adams  himself  conscien- 
tiously avoids  the  pronoun  "  I "  and  writes  of  his  efforts 
and  failures  in  the  third  person.  As  a  result  it  appears 
to  me  that  the  impression  of  egotism  is  much  increased. 
We  are  all  accustomed  to  the  harmless  habit  of  the 
"I";  but  to  have  Henry  Adams  constantly  obtruding 
Henry  Adams  produces  a  singular  and.  in  the  end  sin- 
gularly exasperating  effect.  One  cannot  help  asking, 
What  does  it  matter  to  the  universe  if  even  an  Adams 
is  not  educated?  What  does  it  matter  if  fifty  years  of 
curious  experience  leave  him  to  conclude  that  "He 
seemed  to  know  nothing  —  to  be  groping  in  darkness 
—  to  be  falling  forever  in  space;  and  the  worst  depth 
consisted  in  the  assurance,  incredible  as  it  seemed,  that 
no  one  knew  more"?  58 

Not  that  one  does  not  sympathize  fully  with  the 
admission  of  ignorance.  The  best  and  the  wisest,  the 
most  earnest  and  the  most  thoughtful,  admit  it  every- 
where. The  vast  acceleration  in  knowledge  of  which 
Adams  complained  is  the  distinguishing  feature  of  the 
twentieth  century.  We  are  swamped,  buried,  atrophied 
in  the  immensity  of  our  own  learning.  The  specialist 
is  the  only  relic  of  old  wisdom  that  survives,  and  the 
specialist  is  but  a  pale  and  flickering  torch  to  illumi- 
nate the  general  desolation. 

But  even  here  it  is  Adams's  attitude  that  is  unsatis- 
factory, not  his  conclusions.  He  proclaims  that  his  life 
is  spent  in  an  effort  to  seek  education;  but  one  cannot 
escape  feeling  that  he  is  not  very  eager  to  find  it.  He 
bewails  the  overwhelming  burden  of  ignorance  that 

55 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

descends  upon  him,  appears  to  bewail  it;  but  one  can- 
not help  feeling  that  his  grief  is  largely  rhetorical  and 
that,  so  long  as  ignorance  enables  him  to  gild  a  phrase 
or  turn  an  epigram,  he  can  forgive  it.  He  "mixed  him- 
self up  in  the  tangle  of  ideas  until  he  achieved  a  sort 
of  Paradise  of  ignorance  vastly  consoling  to  his  fa- 
tigued senses."  59  "True  ignorance  approaches  the 
infinite  more  nearly  than  any  amount  of  knowledge 
can  do."60  When  a  student  so  much  enjoys  trifling 
with  the  difficulties  of  his  education,  he  is  not  likely  to 
make  very  rapid  progress  in  overcoming  them. 

Simple  and  quiet  as  Adams  himself  was  in  his  daily 
life,  the  thing  he  most  mistrusted,  intellectually  and 
spiritually,  was  simplicity.  "The  lesson  of  Garibaldi, 
as  education,  seemed  to  teach  the  extreme  complexity 
of  extreme  simplicity;  but  one  could  have  learned  this 
from  a  glow-worm."  61  Again:  "This  seemed  simple  as 
running  water;  but  simplicity  is  the  most  deceitful 
mistress  that  ever  betrayed  man."  62  And  he  disliked 
simplicity  because  it  was  the  key  to  all  his  difficulties, 
as  he  himself  perfectly  well  knew.  He  spent  his  life 
tramping  the  world  for  education;  but  what  he  really 
needed  was  to  be  de-educated,  and  this  also  he  was 
quite  well  aware  of.  He  needed  not  to  think,  but  to 
live.  But  he  did  not  want  to  live.  It  was  easier  to  sit 
back  and  proclaim  life  unworthy  of  Henry  Adams  than 
it  was  to  lean  forward  with  the  whole  soul  in  a  passion- 
ate, if  inadequate,  effort  to  make  Henry  Adams  worthy 
of  life.  Mary  Lyon  would  have  seemed  to  this  wide 
seeker  for  education  very  humble  and  very  benighted; 
but  all  Mary  Lyon  cared  to  teach  her  pupils  was  that 

56 


HENRY  ADAMS 

"they  should  live  for  God  and  do  something."  6S  If  she 
could  have  communicated  some  such  recipe  to  Henry 
Adams,  she  might  have  solved  his  problem,  though  she 
would  have  robbed  the  world  of  many  incomparable 
phrases.  And  even  higher  —  and  humbler  —  authority 
than  Mary  Lyon  declared  that  we  must  become  as  lit- 
tle children  if  we  would  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Perhaps  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century  will  take  this 
as  the  last  word  of  education,  after  alL 


Ill 

SIDNEY  LANIER 


CHRONOLOGY 

Sidney  Lanier. 

Born  in  Macon,  Georgia,  February  3,  1842. 

Graduated  from  Oglethorpe  University,  1860. 

Taught  at  Oglethorpe  University,  1860-1861. 

In  Confederate  service  during  Civil  War,  1861-1865. 

In  Union  prison  four  months,  1864-1865. 

Published  Tiger  Lilies,  1867. 

Married  Mary  Day,  December  21,  1867. 

Practised  law,  1868-1872. 

Decided  on  artistic  career  April,  1873. 

Wrote  "Centennial  Cantata,"  1876. 

Appointed  lecturer  on  English  literature,  Johns  Hopkins 

University,  1879. 
Died,  Lynn,  North  Carolina,  September  7,  1881. 


Ill 

SIDNEY  LANIER 


LANIER  lived  in  a  spiritual  whirlwind,  until  it  snuffed 
him  out.  His  whole  existence  was  a  fight  with  cir- 
cumstances; but  if  every  external  circumstance  had 
been  easy  for  him,  still  he  would  have  nourished  a 
perpetual  tumult  and  turmoil  within.  Our  life  is  no 
dreaming  idyl,  but "  the  hottest  of  all  battles,"  1  he  says 
himself.  Again,  he  says  of  his  sojourn  in  New  York, 
"I  am  continually  and  increasingly  amazed  at  the  in- 
tense rate  of  life  at  which  I  have  to  live  here."  2  The 
rate  at  which  he  always  lived  would  have  astonished 
some  men. 

Nor  was  the  instinct  of  fighting  wholly  figurative  or 
spiritual.  As  a  mere  child,  Lanier  organized  a  military 
company  among  his  Georgia  playmates,  and  drilled 
them  so  thoroughly  that  they  were  admitted  to  parade 
beside  their  elders.  Before  he  was  a  man,  the  Civil 
War  came,  and  he  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  his  beloved 
South  and  served  her  with  distinction.  Military  glory 
was  not  the  kind  he  sought.  He  was  not  the  least  of  a 
bravo  or  a  ranter,  and  the  references  in  his  letters  to 
his  military  experiences  are  few  and  slight.  But  a 
touch  now  and  then  shows  that  he  knew  what  suffering 
was  and  what  endurance  was:  "Did  you  ever  lie  for  a 
whole  day  after  being  wounded,  and  then  have  water 

61 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

brought  you?  If  so,  you  will  know  bow  your  words 
came  to  me***  *  And  if  he  had  felt  the  agony  and  strain 
of  war,  so  he  responded  with  the  keenest  thrill  to  its 
picturesqueness,  its  fey^r  of  excitement,  its  glow  and 
glory:  "Our  life,  during  this  period,  was  as  full  of  ro- 
mance as  heart  could  desire*  We  bad  a  flute  and  a 
guitar,  good  horses,  a  beautiful  country,  splendid  resi- 
dences inhabited  by  friends  who  loved  us,  and  plenty 
of  hair-breadth  escapes  from  the  roving  bands  of  Fed- 
erals who  wore  continually  visiting  that  Debateable 
Land*  I  look  back  upon  that  as  the  most  delicious 
period  of  my  life  in  many  respects*  Cliff  and  I  never 
cease  to  talk  of  the  beautiful  women,  the  serenades, 
the  moonlight  dashes  on  the  beach  of  fair  BunvelTs 
Bay  *  *  *  and  the  spirited  brushes  of  our  little  force 
with  the  enemy*"  4 

But  the  clash  of  physical  war  was  the  least  part  of 
Timer's  tierce  and  constant  st rubles  with  circum- 
stance*  From  bis  youth  till  his  death,  in  1881,  in  his 
fortieth  year,  he  had  ill-health  against  him,  had  to  con- 
tend not  only  with  actual  disease  and  pain,  but  with 
the  depression  and  listless,  hopeless  discouragement, 
which  disease  and  pain  bring  with  them  and  leave  be- 
hind them*  The  results  of  this  incessant  struggle  were 
written  on  his  face  and  figure,  manly  and  dignified  and 
noble  as  they  were*  Hie  worn  carriage  showed  it,  the 
finely  cut  features,  the  deep,  earnest,  passionate  eyes, 
the  hands  that  were  vigorous,  but  white  and  delicate. 
He  understood  and  analysed  his  condition  perfectly* 
Sometimes  be  trumpeted  those  fits  of  exaltation  which 
seem  to  lift  the  tuberculous  invalid  above  the  world: 

a 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

"  I  feel  to-day  as  if  1  had  been  a  dry  leathery  carcass  of 
a  man,  into  whom  some  one  had  pumped  strong  cur- 
rents of  fresh  blood,  of  abounding  life,  and  of  vigorous 
strength.  I  cannot  remember  when  I  have  felt  so  crisp, 
so  springy,  and  so  gloriously  unconscious  of  lungs/' § 
But  again  he  describes  consumptives  as  "beyond  all 
measure  the  keenest  sufferers  of  all  the  stricken  of  this 
world,"  e  or  casually  speaks  of  himself,  "Tortured  as  I 
was  this  morning,  with  a  living  egg  of  pain  away  in 
under  my  collar  bone."  7  Yet  never  for  a  moment 
could  pain  or  lassitude  subdue  him  or  make  him  give 
up  the  struggle  to  do  his  work.  In  the  splendid  mo- 
ments of  hope  he  worked.  In  the  dark,  dull  moments 
of  despair  he  worked.  He  wrote  "Sunrise"  when  his 
temperature  was  104.  He  delivered  his  last  course  of 
lectures  when  so  weak  that  his  hearers  feared  he  would 
expire  in  the  chair.  If  ever  a  man  died  fighting,  he  did. 
All  these  strains  and  torments  of  ill-health  are  bad 
enough  when  one  has  means  to  meet  them,  can  afford 
at  least  the  necessary  lenitives,  without  anxiety  as  to 
where  every  dollar  is  coming  from.  This  was  far  from 
being  the  case  with  Lanier.  No  one  ever  lived  who  was 
more  indifferent  to  money  in  itself  than  he,  who  would 
have  cared  less  for  the  excitement  or  the  satisfaction 
of  accumulating  wealth.  He  did  not  even  long  for 
the  finer  luxuries  and  elegancies  that  go  with  wealth, 
though  every  artist  can  sympathize  with  the  remark  of 
Gray:  "Swift  somewhere  says,  that  money  is  liberty; 
and  I  fear  money  is  friendship  too  and  society,  and  al- 
most every  external  blessing.  It  is  a  great  though  ill- 
natured  comfort  to  see  most  of  those  who  have  it  in 

63 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

plenty  without  pleasure,  without  liberty,  and  without 
friends."  8  With  Lanier  it  was  a  case  of  hard,  bitter 
struggle  for  actual  necessaries.  Brought  up  in  the  full 
taste  of  Southern  ease  and  abundance,  he  found  him- 
self, at  the  close  of  the  war,  like  so  many  Southerners, 
beginning  life  in  the  most  cramping  bonds  of  poverty, 
obliged  to  fight  his  way  upward  from  the  bottom  against 
every  difficulty  that  material  obstacles  could  oppose  to 
him.  Determined  as  he  was  to  win  success  in  lines  of 
work  not  in  themselves  profitable,  or  only  rarely  and 
poorly  so,  he  could  not  labor  to  get  money  with  the 
single  energy  which  is  most  of  all  necessary  to  achieve 
that  result. 

How  desperate,  how  constant,  how  blighting  this 
need  of  money  was  is  written  all  through  Lanier's  bi- 
ography and  letters.  Bread,  mere,  bare  bread  is  the 
word  that  occurs  and  recurs.  Indiscreet  utterance 
"may  interfere  with  one's  already  very  short  allowance 
of  bread."  9  Again,  "My  head  and  my  heart  are  both 
so  full  of  poems  which  the  dreadful  struggle  for  bread 
does  not  give  me  time  to  put  on  paper."  10 

Any  honest  means  of  earning  is  resorted  to.  To  all 
are  given  earnest,  conscientious  effort.  Comfort  and 
independence  are  achieved  from  none.  Teaching?  The 
last  pitiful  refuge  of  those  who  have  immortal  thoughts 
to  sell?  "Tis  terrible  work,  and  the  labor  difficulties 
.  .  .  make  the  pay  very  slim."  n  Government  em- 
ployment? It  requires  influence,  and  immortal  thoughts 
are  the  last  requisite  for  it.  "  I  have  allowed  a  friend  to 
make  application  to  every  department  in  Washington 
for  even  the  humblest  position  . . .  but  without  suc- 

64 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

cess."  12  The  strain  wears  out  body,  wears  out  soul, 
wears  out  courage,  wears  out  hope.  "Altogether  it 
seems  as  if  there  was  n't  any  place  for  me  in  this  world, 
and  if  it  were  not  for  May,  I  should  certainly  quit  it,  in 
mortification  at  being  so  useless."  13  To  some  it  ap- 
pears that  his  physical  decay  has  a  physical  cause;  but 
he  finds  the  cause  rather  in  "the  bitterness  of  having 
to  spend  my  time  in  making  academic  lectures  and 
boy's  books — pot-boilers  all — when  a  thousand  songs 
are  singing  in  my  heart  that  will  certainly  kill  me  if  I 
do  not  utter  them  soon."  14 

For  among  all  these  external  struggles,  the  most  in- 
tense and  passionate,  made  of  course  doubly  so  by  the 
distraction  of  the  others,  was  the  struggle  for  reputation, 
recognition,  success  in  the  positive  career,  or  careers, 
since  music  was  almost  as  dear  to  him  as  poetry, 
that  he  had  chosen  for  himself.  And  in  this  struggle, 
more  than  in  any  other,  come  the  fierce  alternations 
of  hope  and  despair.  "Through  poverty,  through  pain, 
through  weariness,  through  sickness  .  .  .  these  two  fig- 
ures of  music  and  of  poetry  have  steadily  kept  in  my 
heart  so  that  I  could  not  banish  them."  15  But  some- 
times they  hover  close  with  intimate  glory,  making  all 
life  golden,  and  the  past  sacred  and  the  future  sure; 
sometimes  they  fade  and  shift  and  almost  vanish,  serv- 
ing rather  as  an  added  torment  than  as  a  support  or 
refuge. 

In  the  first  rapture  of  achievement,  after  the  toil  and 
travail  of  creation,  work  actually  finished  seems  worth 
doing,  seems  never  indeed  a  full  realization  of  one's 
ideal,  but  seems  at  any  rate  to  embody  something  of 

65 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

what  one  aimed  at,  what  one  hoped  for.  One  is  proud 
of  it,  if  not  satisfied  with  it,  and  above  all  one  is  in- 
spired by  what  one  has  done  with  infinite  confidence  in 
what  one  can  do.  "So  many  great  ideas  for  Art  are 
born  to  me  each  day,  I  am  swept  away  into  the  land  of 
All-Delight  by  their  strenuous  sweet  whirlwind."  16 
And  then  comes  the  reaction  and  the  despair.  What 
seemed  yesterday  a  masterpiece,  to-day  sounds  dull 
and  poor  and  tawdry,  and  that  land  of  All-Delight  be- 
comes merely  barren  as  your  heart. 

As  some  stay  against  this  wretched  self-distrust,  this 
bankruptcy  of  confidence,  you  must  have  the  recogni- 
tion of  others.  There  are  times  when  your  own  ap- 
proval is  enough.  There  are  times  when  it  seems  as 
nothing,  and  even  so  you  cannot  get  it.  Then  a  simple 
word  of  appreciation  may  bring  heaven  to  you.  To  be 
sure,  instead  of  appreciation  there  may  be  indifference 
and  neglect,  and  the  dread  of  these  may  tempt  you  to 
hug  your  own  approval  in  self-sufficient  solitude :  "  I  'd 
like  to  send  a  poem  or  two  occasionally,  or  an  essay; 
but  I  dread  rejection  like  a  mad  lover."  17  Yet  you 
send  the  poem  and  you  face  the  public,  and  if  you 
have  genius  as  Lanier  had,  the  moments  of  recogni- 
tion and  glory  will  come,  however  rare,  and  the  rarer 
the  sweeter.  To  be  told  by  an  intelligent  admirer 
"that  I  was  not  only  the  founder  of  a  school  of  music, 
but  the  founder  of  American  music,"  18  is  intoxicating, 
even  if  you  do  not  believe  it.  Even  more  intoxicating 
is  it  to  feel  and  see  that  you  have  carried  a  great 
company  of  people  out  of  themselves,  as  Lanier  so 
often  did  by  his  wonderful  flute-playing.  "When  I 

66 


SIDNEY  LANIER4 

allowed  the  last  note  to  die,  a  simultaneous  cry  of  pleas- 
ure broke  forth  from  men  and  women  that  almost 
amounted  to  a  shout,  and  I  stood  and  received  the 
congratulations  that  thereupon  came  in,  so  wrpught 
up  by  my  own  playing  with  thoughts,  that  I \  could 
but  smile  mechanically,  and  make  stereotyped  returns 
to  the  pleasant  sayings,  what  time  my  heart  wbrked 
falteringly,  like  a  mouth  that  is  about  to  cry."  18 

And  even  such  triumph  is  not  enough  for  the  eager 
spirit;  but  it  yearns  for  more  creation  and  more  recog- 
nition and  more  and  more.  There  is  no  bound,  no  limit, 
because  beauty  is  limitless  and  life  is  limitless.  To  be 
the  founder  of  American  music  would  be  well;  but 
might  there  not  be  something  more  than  that,  some- 
thing, who  can  tell  what?  In  debating  the  true  bent  of 
his  genius,  Lanier  says:  "I  cannot  bring  myself  to  be- 
lieve that  I  was  intended  for  a  musician,  because  it 
seems  so  small  a  business  in  comparison  with  other 
things  which,  it  seems  to  me,  I  might  do."  20  And  so 
through  all  the  long  and  bitter  struggle  with  circum- 
stance the  soul  goes  staggering,  reaching  onward,  with 
no  rest,  no  respite,  because  the  outer  struggle  is  but  the 
image  and  reflection  of  the  deeper  and  more  passionate 
struggle  within. 

II 

FOR  Lanier's  was  none  of  those  contented  spirits  who 
meet  the  battle  of  the  world  with  a  quiet  and  self- 
subdued  mastery,  who  oppose  to  its  rude  shocks  the 
unfailing  tenacity  of  a  clear  and  four-square  purpose. 
With  hun  the  inner  world  was  as  full  of  battle  as  the 

67 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

outer.  His  thinking  life  was  one  long  effort  to  solve 
problems,  to  break  through  difficulties  instead  of  dodg- 
ing them,  to  reach  the  last  analysis  of  his  own  soul  and 
the  souls  of  others.  "Intellectually,"  says  one  who 
knew  him  well,  "he  seemed  to  me  not  so  much  to  have 
arrived  as  to  be  on  the  way,  —  with  a  beautiful  fervor 
and  eagerness  about  things."  21  He  was  always  on  the 
way,  always  would  have  been,  moving,  growing,  devel- 
oping, longing.  Life  could  never  have  stood  still  for 
him,  never  have  stagnated.  There  was  always  some 
problem  to  be  met,  to  be  fought  with,  to  be  conquered. 
For  such  a  nature  the  moral  life  meant  struggle,  of 
course.  Little  errors  became  great  sins  and  had  to  be 
mourned  over  with  a  repentance  wholly  out  of  propor- 
tion to  the  fault.  "My  father,  I  have  sinned.  With 
what  intensity  of  thought,  with  what  deep  and  earnest 
reflection  have  I  contemplated  this  lately !  My  heart 
throbs  with  the  intensity  of  its  anguish." 22  But  the 
same  ardor  was  carried  into  the  aesthetic  world,  also. 
The  enjoyment  of  great  beauty,  in  music  or  in  poetry, 
was  Jnot  a  serene  enchantment,  a  mere  ecstatic  oblivion, 
but  was  sought  with  suffering  and  maintained  with 
long  effort  and  paid  for  too  often  with  enormous  lassi- 
tude. Spiritual  delight  is  dearly  bought,  perhaps  not 
too  dearly  bought,  but  dearly  bought,  at  any  rate, 
when  it  has  to  be  described  like  this:  "I  have  just  con- 
cluded a  half-dozen  delicious  hours,  during  which  I 
have  been  devouring,  with  a  hungry  ferocity  of  rapture 
which  I  know  not  how  to  express,  *The  Life  of  Robert 
Schumann.'"  23  And  Lanier's  own  criticism  of  this 
same  Schumann  is  certainly  by  no  means  true  of  Lanier 

68 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

himself:  "His  sympathies  were  not  big  enough,  he  did 
not  go  through  the  awful  struggle  of  genius,  and  lash 
and  storm  and  beat  about  until  his  soul  was  grown 
large  enough  to  embrace  the  whole  of  life  and  the  All 
of  things."  24 

Even  in  matters  of  pure  intelligence,  not  essentially 
aesthetic  or  emotional,  even  in  curious  metaphysical  or 
psychological  speculations,  of  no  direct  bearing  on  the 
conduct  of  life,  Lanier  showed  the  same  intensity  and 
activity  and  sincerity.  To  Mark  Twain  thought  was 
an  amusing  diversion,  to  Henry  Adams  it  was  a  splen- 
did stimulant  of  curiosity,  to  Lanier  it  was  a  despotic 
master.  He  thought  with  passion,  did  not  play  with 
ideas  or  trifle  with  them,  but  threw  himself  upon 
them,  fiercely  determined  to  get  rid  of  the  rags  and 
shroudings  of  tradition  and  convention  and  thrust  way 
down  to  the  solid  structure  of  naked  verity.  "Thought, 
too,"  he  says,  "is  carnivorous.  It  lives  on  meat.  We 
never  have  an  idea  whose  existence  has  not  been  pur- 
chased by  the  death  of  some  atom  of  our  fleshly  tis- 
sue." 25  He  never  had,  at  any  rate,  and  he  paid  for 
intellectual  emancipation  with  throbbing  fragments  of 
his  heart.  He  speaks  somewhere  of  "the  Latin  works 
of  Lucretius,  whom  I  have  long  desired  to  study,"  2< 
and  in  whom  he  found  a  friend.  For  in  all  literature 
and  in  all  thought  there  is  no  soul  who  iriade  thinking 
more  of  a  battle  than  Lucretius  did,  and  Lanier  is  like 
him. 

It  is  this  fighting  quality  of  the  analysis,  rather  than 
its  actual  result,  that  gives  a  profound  interest  to  La- 
nier's  critical  writings.  His  books  on  the  English  novel 

69 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

and  on  the  science  of  English  verse  may  not  have 
permanent  critical  value.  Their  ample  abundance  of 
theorizing  may  not  always  work  out  to  a  final  and  sat- 
isfying illumination  of  fact.  But  there  is  an  intensity, 
a  throb,  in  their  spiritual  movement  that  whirls  you 
along  with  it,  whether  you  agree  or  not.  Indeed,  the 
intellectual  activity  is  too  great  for  clarity.  Every 
simplest  element  and  principle  is  subjected  to  an  un- 
compromising test  of  investigation  and  is  torn  to  pieces 
with  an  ingenuity  of  insight  which  discovers  fine 
threads  of  affinity  and  causality  hardly  perceptible  to 
ordinary,  coarser  vision.  Again,  as  with  Lucretius,  one 
feels  that  one  is  battered  with  a  storm  of  solutions  for 
problems  that  can  be  solved  more  simply  or  need  not 
be  solved  at  all.  And,  as  with  Lucretius,  one  is  some- 
times moved  to  pity,  to  see  such  a  splendid  intelligence 
wearing  itself  out  for  futile  results. 

But  the  passion  for  theory,  for  getting  to  the  bottom 
of  things,  is  infectious,  just  the  same.  It  inspires  La- 
nier's  readers  to-day.  It  inspired  all  who  listened  to  his 
admirable  lecturing  at  Johns  Hopkins  and  elsewhere. 
The  passion  is  manifest  not  only  in  Lanier's  formal 
criticism,  but  in  all  his  writing  and  thinking.  "I  don't 
mean  this  for  a  theory,"  he  says  in  one  case;  "I  hate 
theories."  27  But,  hate  them  or  not,  he  was  born  to 
theorize;  not  to  accept  blindly  the  theories  of  others, 
not  to  wallow  widely  in  inherited  formulae:  "Why  do 
we  cling  so  to  humbugs?"  M  he  cries.  But  into  hum- 
bugs and  into  the  crowding  facts  of  life  and  into  the 
elusive  secrets  of  passion  he  loved  to  plunge  the  fine 
instrument  of  thought  and  twist  it  and  turn  it,  with  a 

70 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

touching  confidence  that  it  would  at  last  lead  him  to 
the  inmost  shrine  of  truth.  He  was  no  disbeliever  in 
intellect,  no  doubter  of  the  supremacy  of  reason,  he 
was  not  smothered  with  education  until  he  came  to 
despise  it  altogether,  like  Henry  Adams.  He  believed 
that  the  secrets  of  God  could  be  wrestled  for,  that 
every  good  thing  was  an  object  of  combat  and  conquest, 
and  that,  whatever  peace  might  be  in  heaven,  life  on 
this  earth,  to  be  life  at  all,  must  be  perpetual  war.  "A 
soul  and  a  sense  linked  together  in  order  to  fight  each 
other  more  conveniently,  compose  a  man."  w 

in 

AT  the  same  time  I  would  not  give  the  impression  that 
Lanier  was  always  fighting,  that  he  was  one  of  those 
uncomfortable  persons  who  thrust  their  combative 
tendencies  into  the  face  of  every  interlocutor  or  house- 
mate. Far  from  it.  His  external  battles  were  confined 
to  proper  occasions,  and  such  unfailing  conflict  as  he 
had  within  was  masked  by  perfect  control  and  gracious 
dignity  and  ease.  To  chat  with  him  an  hour  you  would 
never  suspect  that  he  carried  a  world  war  in  his  heart. 

Moreover,  like  all  great  fighters  whose  fights  are 
worth  anything,  he  had  his  hours  of  peace,  his  intervals 
of  relaxation,  when  he  could  forget  the  fierce  violence 
of  thought.  His  appeal  to  tranquillity  does  indeed  seem 
more  like  a  longing  than  a  hope: 

"Oh I  as  thou  liv'st  in  all  this  sky  and  sea 
That  likewise  lovingly  do  live  in  thee, 
So  melt  my  soul  in  thee,  and  thine  in  me, 
Divine  Tranquillity  1"  30 

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AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

Yet  even  in  the  furious  ardor  of  his  art  there  were 
charming  moments  of  refreshment  and  repose.  Crea- 
tion was  a  struggle,  but  the  struggle  of  creation  af- 
forded a  comparative  respite  from  the  colder  and  more 
hopeless  struggle  of  thought.  After  spending  long 
hours  and  long  years  in  the  endeavor  to  disentangle 
theological  complications,  aesthetic  delight  seemed  at 
least  sure  and  enduring,  however  it  tantalized,  and  the 
disheartened  thinker  could  cry,  with  a  feeling  of  relief, 
"an  unspeakable  gain  has  come  to  me  in  simply  turn- 
ing a  certain  phrase  the  other  way :  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness becomes  a  new  and  wonderful  saying  to  me  when 
I  figure  it  to  myself  in  reverse  as  the  holiness  of 
beauty."  81 

Music,  though  in  a  sense  more  than  any  the  art  of 
struggle,  though  its  essence  seems  to  consist  of  effort 
for  the  impossible,  of  discords  resolved  only  to  be 
perpetually  renewed  and  to  seek  for  new  resolution 
forever,  music  has  its  suggestions  of  wide  quiet  and 
all-involving  peace,  only  the  more  celestial  for  their 
rarity.  Writing,  which  at  times  tears  the  soul  to  shreds 
with  its  turbulent  effort,  which  at  times  means  only  a 
vain,  futile,  exhausting  wrestle  with  thoughts  that  will 
not  be  disciplined  and  words  that  flit  away,  writing 
also  has  its  glorious  compensations,  when  all  the  puz- 
zles vanish,  and  sudden,  splendid  phrases  come  from 
unknown  depths  and  fit  into  their  perfect  sequence 
with  divine  smooth  ease.  "I  can't  tell  you  with  what 
ravishing  freedom  and  calmness  I  find  myself  writing, 
in  these  days,  nor  how  serene  and  sunny  the  poetic 
region  seems  to  lie,  in  front,  like  broad  upland  fields 

72 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

and  slopes.  I  write  all  the  time,  and  sit  down  to  the 
paper  with  the  poems  already  done."  " 

And  there  was  other  more  common  human  relaxation 
also,  hours  of  putting  work  aside  and  thought  aside 
altogether  and  just  dabbling  in  sunshine  and  simple 
pleasantness.  Like  most  Southerners,  Lanier  loved  a 
good  horse,  and  a  rush  through  the  nipping  winter  wind 
helped  to  shake  out  the  creases  in  his  soul  and  brush 
the  crumbs  of  doubt  from  them.  "  I  have  at  command 
a  springy  mare,  with  ankles  like  a  Spanish  girl's,  upon 
whose  back  I  go  darting  through  the  green  overgrown 
woodpaths  like  a  thrasher  about  his  thicket."  " 
And  he  found  and  loved  the  repose  of  Nature  even 
more  than  her  activity.  He  knew  well  that  the  best 
medicine  for  the  insupportable  fatigue  of  thought  is 
the  quiet  of  green  fields  and  the  mellow  oblivion  of 
autumn  sunshine.  Sometimes  he  simply  touches  the 
soothing  features  of  the  outward  world  and  leaves  the 
peace  they  brought  him  for  the  reader  to  divine:  "The 
sun  is  shining  with  a  hazy  and  absent-minded  face,  as 
if  he  were  thinking  of  some  quite  other  star  than  this 
poor  earth;  occasionally  a  little  wind  comes  along,  not 
warm,  but  unspeakably  bland,  bringing  strange  scents 
rather  of  leaves  than  of  flowers."  34  Sometimes  he 
makes  perfectly  plain  what  Nature  does  for  him  and 
what  she  might  do  for  you  also:  "To-day  you  must 
forego  expression  and  all  outcome,  you  must  remain  a 
fallow  field,  for  the  sun  and  wind  to  fertilize,  nor  shall 
any  corn  or  flowers  sprout  into  visible  green  and  red 
until  to-morrow."  " 

Nor  is  he  always  serious  in  his  relaxation,  but  recog- 

73 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

nizes  that  sweet  and  kindly  laughter  relieves  tense 
nerves  and  fervid  brains  more  completely  than  al- 
most any  thing,  else,  that  it  at  once  indicates  that  the 
soul  is  free  from  care  and  makes  it  so.  What  could  be 
more  sunny  than  the  freakish  humor  that  runs  through 
the  history  of  Bob,  the  mocking-bird?  And  laughter 
not  only  relaxed,  but  comforted;  for  the  harsh  pressure 
©f  circumstance,  and  the  bitterness  of  neglect  and  re- 
jection were  made  more  tolerable  by  it.  A  man  could 
not  play  more  lightly  with  the  peace  of  home  after 
poverty-stricken  wandering  than  in  phrases  like  these : 
"I  confess  I  a/n  a  little  nervous  about  the  gas-bills, 
which  must  come  in,  in  the  course  of  time . . .  but  then 
the  dignity  of  being  liable  for  such  things !  is  a  very  sup- 
porting consideration.  No  man  is  a  Bohemian  who  has 
to  pay  water-rates  and  a  street  tax.  Every  day  when 
I  sit  down  in  my  dining-room  —  my  dining-room! —  I 
find  the  wish  growing  stronger  that  each  poor  soul  in 
Baltimore,  whether  saint  or  sinner,  could  come  and 
dine  with  me.  How  I  would  carve  out  the  merry- 
thoughts for  the  old  hags!  How  I  would  stuff  the  big 
wall-eyed  rascals  till  their  rags  ripped  again."  36 

As  these  words  indicate,  his  social,  human  instincts 
went  always  abreast  with  his  love  of  merriment.  The 
true  life  of  his  soul  was  solitary,  but  he  would  step  out 
of  it  at  any  time  to  feel  the  warm  touch  of  his  fellows 
and  revel  in  it.  And  his  heart  gave  warmth  as  well  as 
drank  it  in.  His  large,  sunny  cheerfulness  was  infec- 
tious, inspired  cheerfulness  in  all  about  him,  even 
strangers.  As  one  who  knew  him  well  said,  "  If  he  took 
his  place  in  a  crowded  horse-car,  an  exhilarating  at- 

74 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

mosphere  seemed  to  be  introduced  by  his  breezy 
ways."  37  Or,  as  he  himself  expressed  it,  from  the 
deeper,  inner  point  of  view,  "any  bitterness  is  there- 
fore small  and  unworthy  of  a  poet."  M  Not  but  that  he 
had  a  temper,  could  feel  a  poet's  fiery  indignation  at 
wrong  or  meanness  or  injustice,  as  when  he  stood  up  in 
his  place,  in  the  middle  of  an  orchestra  rehearsal,  and 
told  the  conductor  who  had  spoken  brutally  to  a  young 
woman  at  the  piano  just  what  he  thought  of  him.39 
But  the  temper  never  hardened  into  sullenness,  never 
secreted  a  long  grudge  or  a  blighting  quarrel.  "I  was 
never  able  to  stay  angry  in  my  life."  40 

He  liked  to  share  his  pleasures  with  his  friends,  too. 
He  recognized  that  music  is  the  eminently  social  art 
and  entered  with  a  splendid,  ardent  zest  into  the  com- 
mon enjoyment  of  it.  He  delighted  in  a  fascinating 
human  mixture  of  tangled  diversions,  "Kinsfolk,  men 
friends,  women  friends,  books,  music,  wine,  hunting, 
fishing,  billiards,  tenpins,  chess,  eating,  mosquitoless 
sleeping,  mountain  scenery,  and  a  month  of  idleness."41 
He  stepped  out  with  ease  and  grace  from  the  exclusive 
society  of  high  thoughts:  "I  hope  those  are  not  illegiti- 
mate moods  in  which  one  sometimes  desires  to  sur- 
round one's  self  with  a  companionship  less  awful,  and 
would  rather  have  a  friend  than  a  god."  42  He  even 
recognized  that  the  friction  of  brains  with  each  other  is 
sometimes  necessary  to  push  thought  to  its  highest: 
"There's  not  enough  attrition  of  mind  on  mind  here, 
to  bring  out  any  sparks  from  a  man."  43 

Lastly,  and  perhaps  in  Lanier's  case  most  important, 
among  all  the  forms  of  refuge  and  repose  from  the  harsh 

75 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

struggle  of  existence  we  must  place  the  mighty  solace  of 
domestic  love  and  home.  Lanier  married  quite  early  a 
very  charming  woman,  and  her  companionship  and 
comfort  were  the  greatest  possible  relief  in  all  his  trou- 
bles and  difficulties.  Though  he  wandered  widely  and 
his  artist's  calling  took  him  among  all  sorts  of  people 
and  made  him  friends  with  all  sorts,  there  was  nothing 
of  the  Bohemian  in  his  nature.  He  loved  the  ties  of 
life,  all  of  them;  did  not  find  them  ties  but  sweet  inti- 
macies; loved  to  bind  the  large  divagation  of  his  spirit 
to  the  quiet  daily  habits  of  hearth  and  home.  And 
he  shared  all  his  ecstasies  and  enthusiasms  with  her 
whom  he  loved,  so  far  as  such  things  can  be  shared 
on  this  solitary  and  confining  earth.  If  great  beauty 
came  to  him  in  her  absence,  his  enjoyment  of  it  was 
not  quite  perfect,  not  quite  satisfying  without  her: 
"For  I  mostly  have  great  pain  when  music,  or  any 
beauty,  comes  past  my  way,  and  thou  art  not  by. 
Perhaps  this  is  because  music  takes  us  out  of  prison, 
and  I  do  not  like  to  leave  prison  unless  thou  goest 
also."  44  Again,  "Oh,  if  thou  couldst  but  be  by  me  in 
this  sublime  glory  of  music!  All  through  it  I  yearned 
for  thee  with  heart-breaking  eagerness."  45  And  the 
solace  of  childhood,  its  grace,  its  gayety,  its  wild,  way- 
ward self-assertion,  shifting  into  absolute  dependence, 
varied  exquisitely  the  mood  of  this  higher  companion- 
ship. "  Nothing  could  be  more  keen,  more  fresh,  more 
breezy,  than  the  meeting  together  of  their  little  im- 
mense loves  with  the  juicy  selfishness  and  honest 
animalisms  of  the  dear  young  cubs."  46  While  the 
affection Jor  children  and  wife  both  is  enlarged  and 

76 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

interfused  with  the  wider  charity  which  aims  to  spread 
its  all  involving  grasp  over  those  near  and  far  away 
and  like  and  unlike:  "Let  us  lead  them  to  love  every- 
thing in  the  world,  above  the  world,  and  under  the 
world  adequately ;  that  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  a 
perfect  life."  47 

rv 

YET,  after  all,  these  elements  of  repose  and  distraction, 
even  the  most  sacred,  were  but  secondary  to  the  mighty 
effort  and  struggle  to  succeed,  to  achieve,  to  do  great 
things  in  the  world,  to  leave  a  name  that  should  never 
die.  And  one  asks  one's  self,  as  in  so  many  similar 
cases,  but  especially  with  Lanier,  because  the  struggle 
was  so  definite  and  so  desperate,  what  was  the  motive 
back  of  it  all?  Why  should  a  man  fling  aside  health  and 
wealth  and  ease  and  the  endless  variety  of  ephemeral 
diversion  to  give  the  world  what  it  never  asks  for 
and  to  demand  of  it  in  return  what  it  yields  only 
with  brutal  reluctance  and  usually  too  late  ?  What  is 
the  fierce  sting,  the  cruel,  driving  spur  that  urges  the 
artist  onward,  till  one  is  sometimes  almost  tempted  to 
conclude  that  genius  consists  in  the  sting  itself  even 
more  than  in  the  gifts  and  powers  that  it  forces  to  its 
service? 

Is  it  the  mere  desire  of  praise,  of  applause,  of  having 
men  honor  you  and  esteem  you,  point  you  out  and  seek 
your  work  and  treasure  it,  volitare  per  ora  virorum,  as 
the  Latin  poet  expressed  it  better  than  any  one  has  ex- 
pressed it  since?  The  best  and  wisest  have  recognized 
this  motive,  sometimes  frankly,  sometimes  reluctantly 

77 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

and  with  vain  effort  to  hide  it  under  other  names.  The 
young  Milton  knew  well  that 

"  Fame  is  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise." 

Lanier,  who  analyzed  and  dissected  everything,  did 
not  overlook  the  value  of  praise  in  all  its  forms: 
"Much  reflection  convinces  me  that  praise  is  no  ignoble 
stimulus,  and  that  the  artist  should  not  despise  it."  48 
"Although  I  am  far  more  independent  of  praise  than 
formerly,  and  can  do  without  it  perfectly  well:  yet, 
when  it  comes,  I  keenly  enjoy  it."  49 

Again,  besides  the  mere  love  of  fame  and  of  ap- 
plause, there  is  in  the  artist  the  passionate  desire  to 
create  things  beautiful.  This  seems  to  be  quite  differ- 
ent from  the  appreciation  of  such  things,  though  nat- 
urally such  appreciation  is  implied  in  it.  There  are 
plenty  of  persons  whose  sense  of  all  beauty  is  exquisite, 
evidently  as  exquisite  as  that  of  any  creative  artist, 
who  yet  are  content  to  absorb  and  never  to  give  out, 
who  never  apparently  have  the  impulse  to  reproduce 
or  rival  the  masterpieces  that  give  them  the  intensest 
pleasure  of  their  lives.  But  the  artist  cannot  rest  with- 
out the  devouring  effort  to  realize  a  new  beauty,  a 
different  beauty,  a  beauty  more  overwhelming,  more 
enduring  than  even  that  which  intoxicates  his  whole 
being  as  he  receives  it  from  others.  Many  doubtless 
have  felt  this  passion  as  keenly  as  Flaubert  and  Keats. 
None  has  more  passionately  recorded  it.  It  is  the  cry 
that  echoes  in  Phineas  Fletcher's  simple  line, 

"Ah,  singing  let  me  live  and  singing  die." 
It  echoes  everywhere  in  the  letters  of  Sidney  Lanier. 

78 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

"It  was  a  spiritual  necessity,  I  must  be  a  musician,  I 
could  not  help  it." 60  "The  fury  of  creation  is  upon 
me."11  "This  unbroken  march  of  beautiful-bodied 
Triumphs  irresistibly  invites  the  soul  of  a  man  to  cre- 
ate other  processions  like  it.  I  would  I  might  lead  a  so 
magnificent  file  of  glories  into  heaven."  5I 

And  with  the  instinct  of  creating  beauty,  there  is  the 
instinct  of  diffusing  it.  In  some  artists  this  appears  to 
be  lacking.  They  are  content  to  achieve  the  beautiful, 
to  scatter  it  about  them,  to  leave  it  behind  them,  with- 
out considering  or  caring  whether  the  world  learns  to 
enjoy  it  or  not.  Not  theirs  to  create  the  hearing  ear  or 
the  seeing  eye.  Let  such  creep  in  their  traces  and  slowly 
arrive  at  comprehension.  It  was  different  with  Lanier. 
He  burned  to  make  others  feel  what  he  felt,  all  that  he 
felt.  Beauty  was  not  to  be  his  alone,  whether  con- 
ceived or  created.  It  was  to  light  the  whole  wide  world 
with  a  radiant  glory.  "We  are  all  striving  for  one  end," 
he  cried,  transfiguring  other  artists  with  his  own  ardor, 
and  that  is  "to  develop  and  ennoble  the  humanity  of 
which  we  form  a  part." 8S  He  could  not  understand  that 
musicians  could  be  content  to  give  subtle  aesthetic  emo- 
tion to  a  few,  when  it  was  possible  to  "  set  the  hearts  of 
fifteen  hundred  people  afire."  M 

So  we  analyze  vaguely,  imperfectly,  the  deep  mo- 
tives that  lay  at  the  root  of  such  a  life  struggle  as 
Lanier's.  Yet  who  shall  say  that  we  have  quite  touched 
the  secret,  or  really,  finally  explained  why  a  man 
should  be  willing  to  wear  out  his  life  striving,  striving, 
striving  for  a  goal  that  forever  fades  away? 


79 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 


v 

As  we  have  analyzed  the  nature  of  the  struggle  and  its 
fury  and  its  motive,  so  let  us  consider  its  outcome  and 
result.  There  is  the  result  for  the  artist  himself  and 
the  result  for  others.  And  for  himself  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  struggle  means  life.  It  often  means  death 
also,  as  it  did  for  Keats  and  for  Lanier.  Oftener  still 
it  means  death  in  Me,  health  shattered  through  long 
years,  nerves  broken  and  unstrung,  quivering  to  utter 
exhaustion  with  misdirected  effort  and  inadequate 
desire.  The  joy  of  successful  creation  is  shot  through 
with  ardor  that  consumes  even  while  it  intoxicates. 
"  Our  souls  would  be  like  sails  at  sea;  and  the  irresistible 
storm  of  Music  would  shred  them  as  a  wind  shreds  can- 
vas, whereof  the  fragments  writhe  and  lash  about  in 
the  blast  which  furiously  sports  with  their  agony."  6* 
Yet  withal  he  who  has  once  tasted  the  creative  rapture 
knows  nothing  else  that  can  be  called  living  beside  it. 
Certainly  Lanier Js  testimony  on  the  point  is  as  explicit 
as  any  one's:  "To  die,  consumed  by  these  heavenly 
fires: —  that  is  infinitely  better  than  to  live  the  tepid 
lives  and  love  the  tepid  loves  that  belong  to  the  lower 
planes  of  activity."  6r  And  if  he  says  so,  it  is  beyond 
question  true  for  him;  for  no  man  ever  lived  more  fully 
for  the  rapture  or  died  more  patently  from  the  domina- 
tion of  it. 

And  the  result  for  others?  In  Lanier's  case,  the  value 
of  example  is  clear,  even  disregarding  actual  achieve- 
ment. He  was  a  Southerner,  always  a  Southerner.  He 

80 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

loved  the  South,  and  the  South  loved  and  loves  him. 
And  in  his  day  the  spur  of  that  glorious  spirit,  ever 
toiling,  ever  hoping,  giving  up  all  material  success  for 
the  long  pursuit  of  an  ideal,  was  the  very  stimulus  that 
the  young  men  of  the  South  needed  above  all  others. 
Who  shall  say  that  the  young  men  of  the  whole  coun- 
try do  not  need  and  cannot  profit  by  it  now? 

Moreover,  Lanier's  ardent  struggle  bore  fruit  in  a 
considerable  literary  product.  Of  this  the  prose  crit- 
icism and  other  writings  have  their  value  and  will 
probably  continue  to  be  read  with  pleasure  by  a  limited 
number.  But  it  is  the  poems  that  give  their  author  a 
permanent  place  in  American  literature.  With  their 
purely  literary  quality  the  psychographer  does  not  con- 
cern himself.  The  testimony  of  critics  of  different 
schools  is  enough  on  this  point.  But  to  one  who  comes 
to  the  poems  fresh  from  the  close  study  of  Lanier's  in- 
ner life,  they  must  necessarily  prove  a  little  disappoint- 
ing. He  gave  them  grace  and  dignity  and  charm  and, 
above  all,  music ;  but  why  could  he  not  put  his  soul  into 
them?  He  gave  them  thought  and  observation,  magic 
of  description,  and  witchery  of  movement;  but  why 
could  he  not  put  his  soul  into  them?  Flaubert  dili- 
gently kept  his  soul  out  of  his  novels,  and  the  conse- 
quence is  that  the  letters  to  Mademoiselle  X  are  worth 
a  dozen  "Salammbos"  and  "Education  Sentimen- 
tales."  But  with  Flaubert  it  was  a  matter  of  theory. 
With  Lanier  it  would  seem  to  be  rather  an  instinctive 
reserve.  Lucretius  made  all  life  a  fight,  as  Lanier  made 
it;  Lucretius,  of  whom  Lanier  himself  says, 


81 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

"Lucretius  mine 

(For  oh,  what  heart  hath  loved  thee  like  to  this 
That's  now  complaining?)" " 

Then  Lucretius  took  the  dullest  subjects  in  the  world, 
and,  because  he  poured  the  whole  of  his  fighting  soul 
into  them,  he  left  the  tangled  thorns  through  which  he 
tore  his  way  all  glorified  with  shreds  of  luminous  im- 
mortality. Lanier  chose  the  most  promising,  the  most 
poetical  subjects;  but  somehow  the  battling  spirit  is 
not  there.  As  he  himself  most  aptly  says  of  another, 
"There  is  a  certain  something  —  a  flame,  a  sentiment, 
a  spark  kindled  by  the  stroke  of  the  soul  against  sorrow, 
as  of  steel  against  flint  —  which  he  hath  not."  M  "  Sun- 
rise" and  "The  Marshes  of  Glynn"  are  no  doubt  mu- 
sical, magical,  enduring  poetry.  But  there  is  more  to 
stir  my  spirit  in  the  following  lines,  which  throb  with 
the  actual  passion  of  the  long,  despairing  fight: 

"Given,  these, 

On  this,  the  coldest  night  in  all  the  year, 
From  this,  the  meanest  garret  in  the  world, 
In  this,  the  greatest  city  in  the  land, 
To  you,  the  richest  folk  this  side  of  death, 
By  one,  the  hungriest  poet  under  heaven, 

—  Writ  while  his  candle  sputtered  in  the  gust, 
And  while  his  last,  last  ember  died  of  cold, 
And  while  the  mortal  ice  i'  the  air  made  free 
Of  all  his  bones  and  bit  and  shrunk  his  heart, 
And  while  soft  Luxury  made  show  to  strike 
Her  gloved  hands  together  and  to  smile 
What  time  her  weary  feet  unconsciously 
Trode  wheels  that  lifted  Avarice  to  power, 

—  And  while,  moreover,  —  0  thou  God,  thou  God  — ', 
His  worshipful  sweet  wife  sat  still,  afar, 

Within  the  village  whence  she  sent  him  forth 

82 


SIDNEY  LANIER 

Into  the  town  to  make  his  name  and  fame, 
Waiting,  all  confident  and  proud  and  calm, 
Till  he  should  make  for  her  his  name  and  fame, 
Waiting  —  0  Christ,  how  keen  this  cuts  I  —  large-eyed, 
With  Baby  Charley  till  her  husband  make 
For  her  and  him  a  poet's  name  and  fame."  M 

Here,  at  any  rate,  we  have  a  shred  of  Lanier's  heart, 


IV 

JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 


CHRONOLOGY 

James  (Abbott)  McNeill  Whistler. 

Born,  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  July  10,  1834. 

In  Russia,  1843-1848. 

At  West  Point,  1851-1854. 

Went  to  Paris  to  study,  1855. 

Painted  mainly  in  London  and  Paris  till  his  death. 

Ruskin  trial,  1878. 

Venice,  1879,  1880. 

Married  Beatrix  (Philip)  Godwin,  August  11,  1888. 

Wife  died,  May  10,  1896. 

Died  in  London,  July  17,  1903. 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 


IV 
JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 


THE  problem  with  Whistler  is  to  reconcile  a  great 
artist  with  a  little  man;  or,  if  not  a  little  man,  an  odd 
man,  an  eccentric  man,  a  curious,  furious  creature, 
who  flitted  through  the  world,  making  epigrams  and 
enemies,  beloved  and  hated,  laughing  and  laughable, 
and  painting  great  pictures.  He  was  glorified  by  his 
hand  and  damned  by  his  tongue. 

The  task  of  disentangling  this  snarled  soul  is  made 
much  more  difficult  by  the  perplexity  of  records.  What 
little  he  himself  wrote  helps,  so  far  as  it  goes.  But  it 
does  not  go  far;  and  we  have  largely  to  deal  with  a 
cloud  of  legend,  sometimes  rosy,  sometimes  lurid,  ac- 
cording to  tthe  reporter,  but  always  obscuring  and 
deceitful.  Anecdotes  are  told  in  a  dozen  different  ways, 
and  there  is  seldom  that  care  for  verbal  authenticity 
which  is  essential  with  a  spirit  at  once  so  precise  and  so 
evasive.  The  chroniclers  are  baffling,  when  they  mean 
to  be  helpful.  The  shrewd  invent,  the  dull  misappre- 
hend. Take  a  single  instance.  One  of  the  best-known 
Whistler  stories  is  that  of  the  answer  to  a  lady  who 
declared  that  there  was  no  one  like  Whistler  and  Velas- 
quez: "Madam,  why  drag  in  Velasquez?"  An  obsequi- 
ous follower  actually  inquired  of  the  Master,  whether 
he  really  meant  this. l  When  they  are  subjected  to  such 

87 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

Boswells,  who  can  blame  the  Doctor  Johnsons  and  the 
Whistlers  for  running  riot? 

Whistler  was  born  in  Lowell,  like  other  great  men. 
He  did  not  like  it,  would  have  preferred  his  mother's 
Southern  dwelling-place,  and  sometimes  implied  that 
he  was  born  in  Baltimore.  He  declared  in  court  that  he 
was  born  in  Saint  Petersburg.  He  once  said  to  an 
inquisitive  model :  "My  child,  I  never  was  born.  I  came 
from  on  high";  and  the  model  answered,  with  a  friv- 
olous impertinence  that  charmed  him,  "I  should  say 
you  came  from  below."  2  He  was  as  reticent  about  his 
age  as  he  was  about  his  birthplace.  But  the  hard  fact 
is  that  he  was  born  in  Lowell  in  1834.  To  be  born  in 
Lowell,  to  grow  up  in  Russia,  to  be  educated  at  West 
Point,  to  paint  in  France  and  England,  with  vague 
dashes  to  Venice  and  Valparaiso,  and  to  die  in  London 
at  seventy  make  a  sufficiently  variegated  career.  Even 
so,  it  was  less  variegated  without  than  within. 

Through  the  whole  of  it  his  life  was  in  the  pencil  and 
brush,  and  the  world  to  him  was  a  world  of  line  and 
color.  As  a  small  child  he  drew  in  Russia  and  laughed 
at  the  painting  of  Peter  the  Great.  At  West  Point  he 
drew  his  instructors,  mockingly.  In  the  Coast  Survey 
service  he  made  exquisite  official  drawings  —  and  odd 
faces  on  the  margins  of  them.  And,  till  he  died,  laugh- 
ter and  fighting  may  have  been  his  diversions,  but 
drawing  and  painting  were  his  serious  business. 

The  only  serious  one.  Few  human  beings  have  taken 
less  interest  in  the  general  affairs  of  men.  Even  for  the 
other  arts  he  had  little  thought  to  spare,  except  as  they 
affected  his  own.  Poetry  did  not  touch  him,  unless  an 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

occasional  jingle.  Tragedy  he  found  ludicrous.  He 
liked  to  fetch  analogies  from  music,  but  he  knew  noth- 
ing about  it  and  cared  nothing  for  it.  When  Sarasate 
was  being  painted  and  played  for  him,  Whistler  was 
fascinated  with  the  flight  of  the  bow  up  and  down  the 
strings.  The  music  escaped  him. 
\"  Apparently  he  read  little,  except  to  gratify  a  special 
fancy.  He  adored  Poe.  He  read  Balzac  and  the  writers 
of  that  group.  The  Pennells  insist  that  he  must  have 
read  widely,  because  he  had  so  much  general  informa- 
tion. Others  say  that  he  rarely  touched  a  book.  Prob- 
ably the  truth  is  that  his  reading  was  limited,  but  that 
a  most  retentive  memory  kept  forever  anything  that 
impressed  him.  However  this  may  be,  in  all  the  records 
and  biographies  I  have  found  little  trace  of  his  convers- 
ing or  wishing  to  converse  on  ordinary  topics  of  general 
interest. 

To  politics  and  the  wide  range  of  social  questions  he 
was  utterly  indifferent.  He  hated  journalists  because 
they  talked  about  him  and  politicians  because  they  did 
not.  He  praised  America  and  things  American  at  a 
distance,  but  American  democracy  would  not  have 
pleased  him.  In  one  sense  he  was  democratic  himself; 
for  a  street-sweeper  who  could  draw  would  have  inter » 
ested  him  more  than  a  British  peer  who  only  patronized 
art.  "The  Master  was  a  Tory,"  says  Mr.  Menpes. 
"He  did  not  quite  know  why;  but,  he  said,  it  seemed  to 
suggest  luxury;  and  painters,  he  maintained,  should  be 
surrounded  with  luxury.  He  loved  kings  and  queens 
and  emperors,  and  had  a  feeling  that  his  work  should 
only  be  bought  by  royalty."  3 

89 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

With  religion  the  attitude  was  about  as  elementary. 
Whistler  dreaded  death  and  avoided  it  and  the  thought 
of  it.4  He  believed  in  a  future  life  and  could  not  under- 
stand those  people  who  did  not.5  He  even  pushed  this 
belief  as  far  as  spiritualism,  took  a  lively  interest  in 
mediums  and  table-rappings  and  communications  from 
the  dead.  Also,  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a  strict, 
almost  Puritanic  discipline,  and  the  Bible  had  burned 
itself  into  his  memory  so  that  it  colored  much  of  his 
utterance.  But  I  do  not  find  that  religious  emotion  or 
reflection  had  any  large  place  in  his  life.  He  was  im- 
mensely busy  in  this  world  and  left  the  next  to  take 
care  of  itself.  God  is  occasionally  mentioned  in  his 
writings,  but  very  rarely,  and  then  with  kindness,  but 
with  little  interest:  "God,  always  good,  though  some- 
times careless."  6  In  general,  his  religious  tone  is  ad- 
mirably conveyed  by  the  anecdote  of  the  dinner  at 
which  he  listened  in  unusual  silence  to  an  animated 
and  extensive  discussion  between  representatives  of 
various  sects.  At  last  Lady  Burton  turned  to  him 
and  said,  "And  what  are  you,  Mr.  Whistler?"  "I, 
madam?"  he  answered,  using  the  word  with  which  he 
would  have  liked  to  stop  the  mouths  of  all  those  who 
chattered  about  his  own  pursuit  in  life,  "I,  madam? 
Why,  I  am  an  amateur."  7 

The  same  ignorance  of  the  broader  thought  and 
movement  of  the  world  very  naturally  permeates 
even  Whistler's  elaborate  discussions  of  his  own  art. 
The  theories  of  the  celebrated  "Ten  O'Clock"  lecture, 
that  art  is  a  casual  thing,  and  cometh  and  goeth  where 
it  listeth,  that  the  artist  happens,  that  there  are  no 

90 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

artistic  people  or  periods,  and  that  art  has  nothing  to 
do  with  history,  are  shrewd,  apt,  and,  as  a  protest 
against  pedantry,  in  many  ways  just.  But  they  are 
incoherent  and  chaotic,  more  witty  than  philosophical, 
and  more  significant  of  Whistler  than  of  truth.  Above 
all,  they  are  intimately  related  to  the  wide  ignorance 
and  indifference  I  have  been  commenting  on.  Whistler 
made  much  of  his  musical  analogies.  If  he  had  thought 
a  little  more  deeply  on  music,  he  might  have  used 
another  —  or  he  might  not.  For  music  is  indisputably 
and  naturally  what  he  always  sought  to  make  painting, 
the  art  of  ignorance,  the  art,  that  is,  which  appeals 
directly  to  the  emotions  and  does  not  require  for  its 
appreciation  any  wide  training  or  experience  in  history 
or  the  general  interests  of  human  life.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  music,  even  more  than  painting,  seems 
destined  to  become  the  all-engrossing,  all-devouring 
art  of  the  future. 

And  as  Whistler  was  indifferent  to  human  concerns 
outside  his  art  in  a  theoretical  way,  so  he  carried  the 
same  indifference  into  practical  action.  He  lived  to 
paint,  or  to  talk  about  painting;  all  else  was  pastime, 
and  most  things  hardly  that.  Money?  He  could  some- 
times drive  a  hard  bargain,  but  it  was  a  question  of 
pride  in  his  own  work,  not  of  meanness.  Otherwise, 
money  slipped  through  his  fingers,  though  in  the  early 
days  there  was  little  enough  to  slip.  An  artist  should 
be  comfortable,  and  bills  were  mundane  things.  So, 
while  no  one  ever  disputed  his  honesty  of  intention, 
he  was  apt  to  be  in  trouble.  He  was  often  poor  and 
knew  what  privation  was.  But  he  never  complained, 

91 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

and  even  when  the  bailiffs  were  in  his  house,  he  got 
gayety  and  convenience  out  of  them  as  much  as  ever 
Sheridan  did.  With  time  as  with  money.  Exact  hours 
and  art  had  nothing  to  do  with  each  other.  What  was 
punctuality?  A  virtue  —  or  vice  —  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
If  people  invited  him  to  dinner,  he  came  when  he 
pleased  and  dinner  waited.  If  he  invited  them  to 
breakfast  at  twelve,  they  might  arrive  at  one  and  still 
hear  him  splashing  in  his  bath  behind  the  folding- 
doors.8 

In  all  these  varied  phases  of  simplicity  and  so- 
phistication what  strikes  me  most  is  a  certain  child- 
likeness.  The  child  is  a  naked  man,  and  in  many  re- 
spects so  was  Whistler.  The  child  clue  accounts  for 
many  of  his  oddities  and  reconciles  many  of  his  con- 
tradictions. He  thought  some  strange  things;  but 
above  all,  he  said  and  did  what  he  thought,  as  most  of 
us  do  not.  Take  his  infinite  delight  in  his  own  work. 
What  artist  in  any  line  does  not  feel  it?  But  some 
conceal  it  more  than  Whistler.  Gazing  with  rapt  adora- 
tion at  one  of  his  pictures,  he  said  to  Keppel:  "Now, 
isn't  it  beautiful?"  "It  certainly  is,"  said  Keppel. 
And  Whistler:  "No,  but  isn't  it  beautiful?"  "It  is, 
indeed,"  said  Keppel.  And  Whistler  again,  "  raising 
his  voice  to  a  scream,  with  a  not  too  wicked  blasphemy, 
and  bringing  his  hand  down  upon  his  knee  with  a  bang 
so  as  to  give  superlative  emphasis  to  the  last  word  of 
his  sentence,"  " it!  is  n't  it  beautiful?"  9 

The  child  is  the  centre  of  his  own  universe,  relates 
everything,  good  and  evil,  to  himself,  as  does  the  man 
also  hi  his  soul.  Whistler  did  it  openly,  triumphantly. 

92 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

His  official  biographers  declare  that  they  never  heard 
him  refer  to  himself  in  the  third  person;  but  they  knew 
him  only  in  later  life  and  always  managed  to  take  a 
comparatively  academic  and  decorous  view  of  him. 
It  is  impossible  to  question  Mr.  Bacher's  account  of  his 
referring  to  himself  as  Whistler,  though  there  may  be 
some  exaggeration  in  it.  Not  I,  but  Whistler,  did  this 
or  that.  You  must  not  find  fault  with  the  work  or  with 
the  word  of  Whistler.  Or  again,  it  was  the  Master,  as 
Mr.  Menpes  records  it  for  us.  "  You  do  not  realize  what 
a  privilege  it  is  to  be  able  to  hand  a  cheque  to  the  Mas- 
ter. You  should  offer  it  on  a  rich  old  English  salver  and 
in  a  kingly  way."  10  A  good  deal  of  mockery  in  it,  of 
course,  but  an  appalling  deal  of  seriousness  also.  And 
note  the  curious  coincidence  of  this  obvious,  self-assert- 
ing, third-personal  egotism  with  the  attempt  of  Henry 
Adams  to  avoid  egotism  in  precisely  the  same  manner. 
Everywhere  with  Whistler  there  is  the  intense  deter- 
mination of  the  child  to  occupy  the  centre  of  the  stage, 
no  matter  who  is  relegated  to  the  wings.  There  is  the 
sharp,  vivid  laugh,  the  screaming  "Ha !  Ha ! "  —  a  terror 
to  his  enemies,  and  something  of  a  terror  to  his  friends 
also.  Not  a  bit  of  real  merriment  in  it,  but  a  trumpet 
assertion  of  Whistler's  presence  and  omnipresence. 
There  is  the  extraordinary  preoccupation  with  his  own 
physical  personality.  In  some  respects  no  doubt  he 
was  handsome.  A  good  authority  declares  that  in 
youth  he  must  have  been  "a  pocket  Apollo."  n  At 
any  rate,  to  use  his  pet  word,  he  was  always  "amazing." 
The  white  lock,  whether  he  came  by  it  by  inheritance 
or  accident,  what  an  ensign  it  was  to  blaze  out  the 

93 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

coming  of  the  Master!  Just  so  Tom  Sawyer  triumphed 
in  his  deleted  front  tooth.  Read  Mr.  Menpes's  remark- 
able account  of  Whistler  at  the  barber's.  What  a  sa- 
cred function,  what  a  solemn  rite,  the  cult  of  the  lock, 
the  cult  of  the  Master's  personality.  At  the  tailor's  it 
was  the  same.  Every  customer  was  called  upon  to  give 
his  opinion  as  to  the  fit  of  a  coat,  and  the  tailor  was 
duly  impressed  with  his  almost  priestly  privilege: 
"You  know,  you  must  not  let  the  Master  appear  badly 
clothed:  it  is  your  duty  to  see  that  I  am  well  dressed."1* 
What  wonder  that  Mr.  Chesterton  affirms,  though 
unjustly,  that  "the  white  lock,  the  single  eye-glass,  the 
remarkable  hat —  these  were  much  dearer  to  him  than 
any  nocturnes  or  arrangements  that  he  ever  threw  off. 
He  could  throw  off  the  nocturnes;  for  some  mysterious 
reason  he  could  not  throw  off  the  hat."  18  Milton  was 
of  the  opinion  that  he  who  would  be  a  great  poet  must 
make  his  own  life  a  great  poem.  Whistler  apparently 
thought  that  he  who  would  be  a  great  artist  must  make 
himself  a  great  picture;  but  the  picture  he  made  was 
only  what  he  detested  most —  the  word  and  the  thing 
—  clever. 

II 

A  LARGE  feature  of  the  life  of  children  is  quarreling. 
It  certainly  was  a  large  feature  of  the  life  of  Whistler. 
And  we  shall  best  understand  his  quarrels,  if  we  think 
of  him  as  a  noisy,  nervous,  sharp-tongued,  insolent 
boy.  There  have  been  plenty  of  other  artists  like  him, 
alas!  He  has  been  compared  to  Cellini,  and  justly;  and 
Vasari's  accounts  of  Renaissance  painters  abound  with 

94 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

rough  words  and  silly  or  cruel  deeds  that  might  easily 
have  been  Whistler's.  Byron's  aristocratic  imperti- 
nences show  the  same  thing  in  literature,  and  Heine's 
noble  and  lovable  traits  were  offset  by  abuse  in  the 
temper  of  a  street  ragamuffin. 

Whistler  liked  flattery  and  adulation  as  a  child  does, 
and  sought  them  with  the  candid  subtlety  which  a  child 
employs  for  the  same  object,  witness  the  singular  story 
of  the  arts  and  wiles  with  which  the  Master  tried  to 
win  the  affection  of  the  ignorant  fishermen  of  Saint 
Ives — without  success.14 

As  he  liked  compliments,  so  he  resented  criticism, 
especially  if  it  did  not  come  from  a  competent  source; 
and  a  competent  source  was  too  apt  to  mean  one  that 
took  Whistler's  preeminence  for  granted.  Criticism, 
sometimes  reasonable,  sometimes  ignorant,  sometimes 
really  ill-natured  and  spiteful,  was  at  the  bottom  of 
most  of  the  riotous  disagreements  which  long  made  the 
artist  more  conspicuous  than  his  painting  did.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  go  into  the  details  of  all  these  unpleas- 
ant squabbles.  The  names  of  Ruskin,  Wilde,  Moore, 
Whistler's  brother-in-law,  Haden,  and  his  patrons, 
Eden  and  Leyland,  will  sufficiently  suggest  them. 
Sometimes  these  adventures  began  with  hostility. 
Sometimes  friendship  began  them  and  hostility  ended 
them.  Sometimes  Whistler  appears  madly  angry, 
actually  foaming  at  the  mouth,  says  one  observer,  so 
that  a  fleck  of  foam  was  to  be  seen  on  his  tie. 1B  Some- 
times he  chuckled  and  triumphed  devilishly,  with 
punctuations  of  the  fierce  and  irritating  "Ha!  Ha!" 
Sometimes  there  was  physical  violence.  Once  the 

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AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

artist  caught  an  antagonist  washing  his  face  in  a  club 
dressing-room,  slipped  up  behind  him,  dashed  his  head 
down  into  the  soapy  water,  and  ran  away  gleefully, 
leaving  the  enemy  to  sputter  and  swear.16  Or  the 
contest  was  more  furious  and  more  doubtful  in  out- 
come, as  in  the  rough-and-tumble  fights  with  Haden 
and  Moore,  in  which  each  side  asserted  the  victory. 
Of  course  such  doings  were  disgusting  and  disgraceful, 
no  matter  how  they  resulted,  and  they  should  have 
been  forgotten  as  speedily  as  might  be. 

But  this  was  not  Whistler's  way.  Instead,  he  gloated 
over  every  contest,  whether  verbal  or  muscular.  He 
insulted  his  enemies  and  exalted  their  discomfiture  in 
print,  like  a  hero  of  Homer  or  a  conceited  boy.  He 
wrote  letter  after  letter  to  the  papers,  always  so  oblig- 
ingly ready  to  help  a  great  man  expose  himself.  Then 
he  collected  the  whole  mass,  including  the  replies  of 
those  who  had  been  foolish  enough  to  reply,  into  "The 
Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,"  and  flattered  himself 
that  he  was  a  great  author  as  well  as  a  great  painter. 

Some  people  think  he  was.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he 
was  a  master  of  bitter  words.  His  phrases  have  a  casual 
ease  of  snapping  and  stinging  that  often  scarifies  and 
sometimes  amazes.  From  his  Puritan  training  and  his 
extensive  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  "that  splendid  mine 
of  invective"  as  he  characteristically  called  it,17  he 
drew  a  profusion  of  abuse,  which  withered,  whether 
justifiable  or  not.  And  occasionally  he  was  capable  of 
great  imaginative  touches  that  recall  his  pictures. 

But  in  general  his  writing  is  vexatious  and,  to  say 
the  least,  undignified,  the  angry  gabble  of  a  gifted  small 

96 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

boy,  who  ought  to  know  better.  The  Wilde  corre- 
spondence is  perhaps  the  worst;  but  everywhere  we  get 
a  tone  of  cheap  railing.  There  is  a  careless  vigor  of 
sharp  wit,  but  hardly  the  vituperative  splendor  of 
Voltaire  or  Swift.  And  it  is  such  a  small,  such  a  shallow, 
such  a  supersensitive  way  of  taking  criticism;  no  ur- 
banity, no  serenity,  no  large,  sweet,  humorous  accept- 
ance of  the  inevitable  chattering  folly  of  the  world. 
I  do  not  see  how  any  admirer  of  Whistler's  positive 
genius  can  read  "The  Gentle  Art"  without  sighing 
over  the  pity  of  it. 

The  pity  of  it  is  rather  increased  by  his  evident  en- 
joyment. There  was  no  real  hatred  at  the  bottom  of 
his  attacks.  Mr.  Chesterton  insists  that  he  tortured 
himself  in  torturing  his  enemies.  This  is  rather  too 
much  of  a  tragic  emphasis.  He  relieved  his  nervous 
irritability  by  slashing  right  and  left.  But  I  do  not 
know  that  there  was  much  torture  in  it  and  there  was 
a  good  deal  of  fun —  of  a  kind.  "I  have  been  so  abso- 
lutely occupied,  what  with  working  and  fighting!  — 
and  you  know  how  I  like  both."18  He  did  like  fighting, 
and  winning  —  or  to  make  out  that  he  had  won.  In  a 
charming  phrase  he  describes  himself  as  "delicately 
contentious."  19  Again,  he  told  the  Pennells  that  "he 
could  never  be  ill-natured,  only  wicked."20  The  dis- 
tinction is  worthy  of  him,  and  is  no  doubt  just,  though 
perhaps  not  so  self-complimentary  as  he  thought  it. 

Moreover,  in  all  his  fights  and  quarrels,  he  liked  and 
respected — possibly,  as  Du  Maurier  insinuates,21— 
a  little  dreaded  —  those  who  stood  up  to  him  and  an- 
swered back.  If  you  dodged  and  cowered,  he  would 

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AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

pursue  you  remorselessly.  If  you  gave  him  as  good 
as  he  sent,  he  would  laugh  that  shrill  "Ha!  Ha!"  and 
let  you  go.  Mark  Twain  visited  him  and  was  looking 
over  his  pictures.  "Oh,"  cried  Whistler,  "don't  touch 
that!  Don't  you  see,  it  is  n't  dry?"  "I  don't  mind," 
said  Mark.  "I  have  gloves  on."  From  that  moment 
they  got  along  famously.  When  the  artist  was  painting 
Lady  Meux,  he  vexed  and  bothered  and  badgered  her 
past  endurance.  Finally  she  snapped  out,  "See  here, 
Jimmie Whistler!  You  keep  a  civil  tongue  in  that  head 
of  yours,  or  I  will  have  in  some  one  to  finish  those  por- 
traits you  have  made  of  me."  All  Whistler  could  find 
to  say  was,  "How  dare  you?  How  dare  you?"  M 

Also,  his  impishness,  his  strange,  fantastic  love  of 
mischief  prompted  him  to  scenes  and  touches  of  Aristo- 
phanic,  Mephistophelian  comedy,  sometimes  laughable 
and  sometimes  repulsive.  There  is  a  Renaissance 
cruelty  about  his  remark,  when  told  that  the  architect 
who  originally  designed  the  Peacock  Room  had  gone 
mad  on  seeing  Whistler's  alterations,  "To  be  sure, 
that  is  the  effect  I  have  upon  people."  23  There  is  more 
of  the  ridiculous,  but  also  much  of  the  bitter,  in  his  own 
wonderful  account  of  his  revenging  himself  upon  Sir 
William  Eden  by  spoiling  the  auction  sale  of  his  pic- 
tures: "I  walked  into  the  big  room.  The  auctioneer 
was  crying  'Going!  Going!  Thirty  shillings!  Going!' 
'Ha!  Ha!'  I  laughed — not  loudly,  not  boisterously 
—  it  was  very  delicately,  very  neatly  done.  But  the 
room  was  electrified.  Some  of  the  henchmen  were 
there;  they  grew  rigid,  afraid  to  move,  afraid  to  glance 
my  way  out  of  the  corners  of  their  eyes.  'Twenty 

98 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

shillings!  Going!'  the  auctioneer  would  cry.  'Ha! 
Ha!'  I  would  laugh,  and  things  went  for  nothing  and 
the  henchmen  trembled."  *4 

Moralizing  comment  on  all  these  wild  dealings  and 
doings  of  Whistler  is  perhaps  superfluous  and  inap- 
propriate. It  would  certainly  have  caused  boundless 
glee  to  Whistler  himself.  Yet  one  maybe  permitted  to 
point  out  how  easy  it  is,  after  all,  to  be  disagreeable  and 
how  little  real  cleverness  it  requires.  Most  of  us  devote 
our  best  efforts  to  avoiding  instead  of  achieving  it. 
And  then  how  often  we  fail!  Even  to  be  disagreeably 
witty  is  not  always  a  triumph  of  genius.  Any  tongue 
can  sting,  and  the  unthinking  are  always  ready  enough 
to  mistake  stinging  for  wit.  Much  of  Whistler's  re- 
corded talk  and  signed  writing  irresistibly  suggests 
Doctor  Johnson's  saying  about  Gibber:  "  Taking  from 
his  conversation  all  that  he  ought  not  to  have  said,  he 
was  a  poor  creature." 

It  is  the  same  with  the  gentle  art  of  making  enemies. 
Most  of  us  require  no  art  for  it,  being  admirably  gifted 
by  nature  in  that  direction.  The  art  of  making  friends 
is  the  difficult  one,  especially  that  of  keeping  them  after 
they  are  made.  It  is  easy  to  ridicule  friendship.  A  lady 
once  asked  Whistler:  "Why  have  you  withered  people 
and  stung  them  all  your  life?"  He  answered:  "My 
dear,  I  will  tell  you  a  secret.  Early  in  life  I  made  the 
discovery  that  I  was  charming;  and  if  one  is  delightful, 
one  has  to  thrust  the  world  away  to  keep  from  being 
bored  to  death."  26  And  he  dedicated  "The  Gentle 
Art"  to  "The  rare  Few,  who,  early  in  Life,  have  rid 
Themselves  of  the  Friendship  of  the  Many."  The  irony 

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AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

is  obvious  enough,  and  it  is  equally  obvious  that  Whis- 
tler was  referring  to  the  casual  friendships  of  the  world, 
which  do  not  deserve  the  name.  At  the  same  time,  the 
art,  or  the  gift,  or  the  instinct,  of  drawing  men  to  you 
is  worth  more,  to  the  artist  or  the  Philistine,  than  that 
of  repelling  them.  In  studying  Whistler  one  cannot 
but  think  of  such  an  opposite  type  as  Longfellow,  who, 
without  effort,  almost  without  thought,  and  still  keep- 
ing an  individuality  as  sturdy  and  more  manly  than 
Whistler's,  made  himself  lovable  and  beloved  by  every- 
body. Or,  if  Longfellow  as  an  artist  is  not  thought 
worthy  the  comparison,  take  Raphael,  of  whom  Vasari 
tells  us  that  a  power  was  "accorded  to  him  by  Heaven 
of  bringing  all  who  approached  his  presence  into  har- 
mony, an  effect  inconceivably  surprising  in  our  calling 
and  contrary  to  the  nature  of  artists."  And  again, 
"  All  harsh  and  evil  dispositions  became  subdued  at  the 
sight  of  him;  every  base  thought  departing  from  the 
mind  before  his  influence. .  .  .  And  this  happened  be- 
cause he  surpassed  all  in  friendly  courtesy  as  well  as  in 
art."  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  such  praise  would  be 
worth  more  to  Whistler's  memory  a  hundred  years 
hence  than  "The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies." 

HI 

So,  having  got  rid  of  the  too  abundant  negative  traits, 
let  us  turn  to  Whistler's  attraction  and  charm.  He  was 
a  man  of  contradictions,  says  Mr.  Van  Dyke; 2<J  and 
the  frivolous  mischief-maker  lived  side  by  side  with  a 
thoughtful,  earnest,  even  lofty-souled  artist. 
The  child  clue  will  stay  with  us,  as  before.  Those 

100 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER:, 

who  knew  Whistler  best  frequently  recur  to  it  :-"When 
off  his  guard,  he  was  often  a  pathetic 'kifi.*'-*7  The 
childlike  candor  rarely  failed,  not  only  in  asserting 
merits,  but  even  in  recognizing  defects:  "He  was  the 
most  absolutely  truthful  man  about  himself  that  I  ever 
met.  I  never  knew  him  to  hide  an  opinion  or  a  thought 
—  nor  to  try  to  excuse  an  action."  28  And  with  the 
candor  in  professing  opinions  went  a  high  and  energetic 
courage  in  defending  them,  a  courage  that  was  some- 
times blatant  and  tactless,  but  seems  to  have  been 
genuine,  even  to  the  point  of  admitting  its  own  failures. 
When  Mr.  Menpes  said  to  him,  "Of  course  you  don't 
know  what  fear  is?"  Whistler  answered,  "Ah,  yes! 
I  do.  I  should  hate,  for  example,  to  be  standing  op- 
posite a  man  who  was  a  better  shot  than  I,  far  away 
out  in  the  forest  in  the  bleak,  cold  early  morning. 
Fancy  I,  the  Master,  standing  out  in  the  open  as  a 
target  to  be  shot  at!"  29 

In  general  human  relations  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  Whistler  was  always  thorny,  prickly, 
biting  and  stinging.  His  biographers  insist  upon  his 
gayety.30  Mr.  Chesterton  denies  that  he  was  gay  at  all, 
and  I  think  Mr.  Chesterton  must  have  been  right. 
True  gayety  not  only  does  not  wound,  but  cannot  bear 
the  thought  of  having  wounded;  and  such  was  not 
Whistler.  Though  he  chose  the  butterfly  emblem,  his 
nature  had  not  the  butterfly's  light  and  careless  satura- 
tion of  sunshine.  But  it  is  true  that  he  loved  human 
society  and  did  not  like  to  be  alone,  even  wanting 
people  about  him  when  he  worked.  He  could  use  his 
wit  to  charm  and  fascinate  as  well  as  to  punish.  When- 

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AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

ev€tr he  took  part  in  conversation,  he  led  it  and  de- 
served to' lead  it.  Hear  this  account  of  his  appear- 
ance in  a  crowded  club-room:  "Speaking  simply  in 
a  quiet  way  to  myself,  without  once  looking  round, 
Whistler  would  draw  every  man  in  that  club  to  his 
side  —  smart  young  men  about  town,  old  fogies, 
retired  soldiers,  who  had  been  dozing  in  arm- 
chairs." 31  And  men  not  only  listened  to  him,  they 
loved  him — when  they  did  not  hate  him.  "Whistler 
could  be  gentle,  sweet,  sympathetic,  almost  feminine, 
so  lovable  was  he."  32  He  inspired  deep  attachments, 
which  could  be  broken  only  by  the  rude  knocks  that 
he  too  well  knew  how  to  give  them.  He  was  gentle 
and  patient  with  servants,  and  there  is  no  better  proof 
of  simple  goodness  and  kindness. sa 

For  women  he  seems  always  to  have  had  a  peculiar 
regard,  though  the  records  of  his  relations  with  them 
are  naturally  not  abundant.  His  Southern  training 
and  habits  gave  him  a  rather  unusual  formal  courtesy 
toward  them  and  many  witnesses  insist  upon  what  is 
somewhat  curious  in  consideration  of  his  wit  and  comic 
instinct  and  his  distinctly  irregular  life,  that  he  never 
uttered  and  never  tolerated  grossness.  Two  attach- 
ments to  women,  at  any  rate,  played  a  large  part  in  his 
career.  He  adored  his  mother  and  obeyed  her  in  his 
youth.  He  adored  her  and  watched  over  her  in  his 
riper  years.  Although  he  resented  any  critical  sugges- 
tion of  sentiment  in  his  portrait  of  her,  he  confided  to 
a  friend,  speaking  very  slowly  and  softly.  "Yes — yes 
—  one  does  like  to  make  one's  mummy  just  as  nice  as 
possible." 34  When  he  was  over  fifty,  he  stumbled  upon 

102 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

a  marriage,  fortuitous  as  most  other  external  events  in 
his  life;  but  the  marriage  was  singularly  happy;  he 
adored  his  wife  as  he  had  his  mother,  and  her  death 
shattered  him  in  a  way  to  confute  those  who  denied 
him  human  tenderness. 

When  it  comes  to  art,  Whistler's  admirable  qual- 
ities are  questioned  by  no  one.  His  devotion  to  it  from 
youth  to  age  was  perfect  and  unfailing.  It  was  not 
perhaps  so  devouring  and  morbid  a  passion  as  with 
some,  but  it  was  a  constant  flame,  which  burned  stead- 
ily through  all  difficulty  and  all  discouragement.  It 
was  enlightened  and  intelligent  also,  directed  from 
the  beginning  with  firm  and  close  discipline  toward  a 
definite  object.  Not  that  the  difficulties  and  discour- 
agements did  not  come.  In  spite  of  his  confidence 
and  belief  in  himself,  there  were  times,  as  with  all 
artists,  when  things  went  bitterly,  hopelessly  wrong: 
"No  one,"  says  Mr.  Gay,  "can  realize,  who  has  not 
watched  Whistler  paint,  the  agony  his  work  gave  him. 
I  have  seen  him  after  a  day's  struggle  with  a  picture, 
when  things  did  not  go,  completely  collapse,  as  from 
an  illness."  35  And  one  should  read  Mr.  Menpes's 
strange  account  of  nervous  excitement,  on  the  very 
eve  of  an  exhibition,  over  a  mouth  that  was  not  right 
and  could  not  be  made  right:  "He  became  nervous  and 
sensitive.  The  whole  exhibition  seemed  to  centre  on  that 
one  mouth.  It  developed  into  a  nightmare.  At  length, 
in  despair,  he  dashed  it  out  with  turpentine,  and  fled 
from  the  gallery  just  as  the  first  critic  was  entering." 36 

As  these  efforts  and  struggles  show,  no  matter  how 
much  Whistler  may  have  attitudinized  in  life,  in  art 

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AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

he  was  sincere  and  genuine.  If  you  took  him  quietly 
by  himself,  you  could  not  but  feel  this.  "As  a  matter 
of  fact,"  says  Mr.  Van  Dyke,  "he  was  almost  always 
in  a  serious  mood,  and,  with  his  knowledge  and  gift  of 
language,  talked  most  sensibly  and  persuasively."  37 
His  actions  showed  sincerity  far  more  than  his  talk. 
Though  he  was  careless  about  money,  spent  much  of  it 
and  would  have  liked  to  spend  more,  and  believed  that 
he  could  have  done  better  work  if  he  had  had  more  to 
spend,  he  never  sacrificed  one  line  of  his  ideals  for  any 
earthly  payment.  "  It  is  better  to  live  on  bread  and 
cheese  and  paint  beautiful  things  than  to  live  like 
Dives  and  paint  pot-boilers,"  he  said; 38  and  he  meant  it 
and  acted  on  it  always. 

Also,  he  was  sincere  enough  to  accept  criticism  and 
profit  by  it,  when  it  came  from  a  proper  source  and  in 
a  proper  spirit.  He  once  asked  a  great  sculptor  what 
he  thought  of  a  portrait.  The  sculptor,  after  some  hes- 
itation, merely  pointed  out  that  one  leg  was  longer 
than  the  other.  Whistler's  friends  expected  an  out- 
burst. Instead,  he  remarked  quietly:  "You  are  quite 
right.  I  had  not  observed  the  fault,  and  I  shall  cor- 
rect it  in  the  morning."  39  Afterward  he  added,  "What 
an  eye  for  line  a  sculptor  has!" 

And,  as  he  was  ready  to  submit  to  intelligent  crit- 
icism of  his  own  painting,  so  he  was  equally  quick  to 
acknowledge  merit  in  others,  provided  it  was  really 
there.  He  praised  the  work  of  students  and  fellow- 
artists  with  swift  and  discerning  kindness,  if  it  seemed 
to  him  praiseworthy.  But  pretence  and  shallow  clev- 
erness he  withered  wherever  he  found  them. 

104 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

His  capacity  for  labor,  for  continuous  and  prolonged 
painstaking,  was  limitless.  Because  he  concealed  this 
and  pretended  to  work  lightly  and  casually,  people 
thought  him  idle,  but  he  was  not.  Industry,  he  said, 
was  an  absolute  necessity,  not  a  virtue,  and  a  picture, 
when  finished,  should  show  no  trace  of  the  labor  that 
had  produced  it:  "Work  alone  will  efface  the  foot- 
steps of  work."  40  In  fact,  it  was  only  in  age  that  he 
discovered  that  he  had  never  done  anything  but  work. 
"It  struck  me  that  I  had  never  rested,  that  I  had  never 
done  nothing,  that  it  was  the  one  thing  I  needed."  41 
He  could  not  tolerate  laziness  in  himself  or  in  others. 
In  his  house  there  were  no  armchairs,  and  to  a  friend 
who  complained  of  this  he  said,  "  If  you  want  to  rest, 
you  had  better  go  to  bed."  42  But  his  friends  and  pupils 
did  not  want  to  rest  when  he  was  with  them.  "Whis- 
tler invariably  inspired  people  to  work,"  says  one  who 
knew  him  well.  4S  The  sittings  for  his  portraits  were 
prolonged  and  repeated,  till  the  sitters'  patience  was 
utterly  exhausted,  and  some  of  them  complained  that 
the  intensity  of  his  effort  seemed  to  draw  the  very  life 
out  of  them. 44  In  short,  those  who  judge]  him  by  his 
quarrels  and  his  bickerings  and  his  flippancy  and  his 
odd  clothes  get  no  idea  of  the  deep,  conscientious  ear- 
nestness of  the  artist.  He  worked  till  death  to  produce 
beautiful  things.  A.  year  before  he  died,  he  insisted  with 
passionate  simplicity  and  sincerity:  "I  would  have  done 
anything  for  my  art."  45  To  the  end  he  was  looking 
forward  and  there  are  few  finer  expressions  of  the  ar- 
dor of  creation  than  his  noble' phrase,  "an  artist's  ca- 
reer always  begins  to-morrow."  4e 

105 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

IV 

IT  is  not  'my  business  to  discuss  Whistler's  art  as 
such.  But  as  the  general's  soul  is  revealed  in  his  bat- 
tles and  the  preacher's  in  his  sermons,  so  in  his  pic- 
tures we  must  seek  the  painter's,  and  the  biographer 
must  consider  work  as  well  as  words. 

It  appears,  then,  that  in  Whistler's  art  there  are 
two  marked  elements  which,  taken  together,  help 
largely  to  elucidate  his  spirit.  The  first  of  these  is  the 
element  of  truth,  precision,  exactitude,  showing  more 
conspicuously  in  the  etchings,  but  never  neglected  in 
any  of  his  work  at  any  time.  As  he  himself  said  of  the 
Thames  series  of  etchings:  "There,  you  see,  all  is 
sacrificed  to  exactness  of  outline."  47 

This  instinct  of  truth,  of  reality,  should  be  closely 
related  to  the  more  external  facts  of  Whistler's  life. 
In  combination  with  the  childlike  simplicity  and  open- 
ness, it  entered  largely  into  his  everlasting  quarrels. 
He  did  not  quarrel  in  Paris  —  that  is,  not  abnormally. 
But  all  the  artist  in  him,  all  the  truth-lover,  revolted 
against  the  conventions  of  English  Philistinism,  and 
he  fought  them,  whether  critical  or  social,  with  all  the 
passion  that  was  in  him.  "The  wit  of  Whistler  . .  .  was 
the  result  of  intense  personal  convictions  as  to  the 
lines  along  which  art  and  life  move  together,"  says 
one  of  his  most  intelligent  biographers.48  As  applied 
to  life,  this  instinct  of  truth  in  him  was  mainly  de- 
structive, and  did  little  good  to  him  or  others;  but  it 
wa?  obscurely  lofty  in  aim  and  it  was  an  integral  part 
of  his  better  nature. 

106 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

In  art,  on  the  other  hand,  the  destructive  instinct 
led  at  once  to  construction.  Here,  too,  indeed,  there 
was  the  perpetual,  deadly  war  on  sham.  Whistler  saw 
all  around  him,  in  painting  as  in  poetry,  the  Victorian 
excess  of  sentiment.  The  "heart  interest"  was  what 
counted  and  execution  was  a  minor  matter.  The  An- 
gelus  and  "Evangeline"  would  make  a  world-wide 
reputation,  whether  the  workmanship  was  supreme  or 
not.  Against  this  heresy  of  the  subject  Whistler  was 
in  perpetual  revolt.  He  did  not  sufficiently  realize 
that  a  great  artist  may  treat  a  great  subject,  though  it 
too  often  happens  that  to  the  vulgar  eye  a  great  subject 
may  transfigure  a  mean  conception  and  a  vulgar  hand- 
ling. He  wanted  to  shake  art  free  from  all  these  ad- 
juncts of  theme  and  historical  association  and  his- 
torical development  and  concentrate  the  artist's  whole 
effort  on  the  pure  ecstasy  of  line  and  color.  He  pushed 
this  so  far  as  to  revel  in  mere  decorative  richness, 
feeding  and  filling  his  eye  and  imagination  with  the 
azure  and  golden  splendors  of  the  Peacock  Room. 

But,  of  course,  if  you  had  pushed  him  home,  he 
would  have  admitted  that  in  the  end  all  beauty  must 
be  related  to  human  emotion,  vague  suggestions  and 
intimations  of  subtle  feeling,  all  the  more  overpower- 
ing because  indefinite.  And  the  real  purpose  of  get- 
ting rid  of  a  distinct,  trite  subject  was  to  allow  these 
essential  emotions  richer  play.  Music,  in  which  he  so 
often  sought  analogy,  would  have  given  it  to  him  in 
this  point  also.  For  the  most  elaborate  orchestral 
symphony  depends  as  fundamentally  on  human  emo- 
tion for  its  significance  as  does  the  simplest  air.  And 

107 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

Bach  and  Wagner  open  realms  of  feeling  equally  deep, 
though  widely  different.  The  most  original  and  sug- 
gestive part  of  Whistler's  painting,  if  not  the  great- 
est, is  that  which  enters  most  into  this  vast  and  un- 
charted region  of  intangible  emotion.  Of  all  things  he 
loved  to  paint  night,  and  what  in  the  wide  world  is 
more  throbbing  with  imaginative  depths?  "Subject, 
sentiment,  meaning  were  for  him  in  the  night  itself  — 
the  night  in  its  loveliness  and  mystery."  49 

Here  we  seize  the  second  cardinal  element  in  Whis- 
tler's work,  the  element  of  mystery.  What  character- 
izes his  range  of  vague  emotion  is  not  passion,  not  mel- 
ancholy, but  just  the  sense  of  mystery,  of  the  indefin- 
able, the  impalpable.  It  is  singular  how  all  the  critics, 
whatever  their  point  of  view,  unite  in  distinguishing 
this,  something  vague,  something  elusive,  some  hidden, 
subtle  suggestion  which  cannot  be  analyzed  or  seized 
in  words.  It  is  naturally  more  marked  in  the  noc- 
turnes and  similar  paintings,  but  it  is  perfectly  appre- 
ciable also  in  the  portraits  and  in  the  etchings,  the 
handling  of  backgrounds  and  accessories,  the  delicate, 
evasive  gradation  of  tints  and  shades.  As  Huysmans 
puts  it, "  these  phantom  portraits,  which  seem  to  shrink 
away,  to  sink  into  the  wall,  with  their  enigmatic 
eyes."  *° 

And  note  that  the  two  elements  must  work  together 
to  produce  their  full  effect.  It  is  the  intense  impres- 
sion of  defmiteness,  of  clearness,  the  extraordinary 
realistic  emphasis  on  one  salient  point,  that  doubles 
the  surrounding  suggestion  of  mystery.  In  the  secret 
of  making  precision,  vivid  definition,  enhance  and  re- 

108 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

double  the  obscure,  Whistler  shows  his  debt  to  Poe 
in  an  overwhelming  degree.  But  there  is  another  in- 
fluence that  may  have  affected  Whistler  in  this  re- 
gard, and  that  is  Russia.  I  cannot  find  that  any  critic 
or  biographer  has  suggested  this.  Yet  the  artist  passed 
the  most  impressionable  part  of  his  youth  in  Russia. 
His  eyes,  his  ears,  his  heart  were  wide  open  all  that  time. 
Not  only  Russian  painting,  but  Russian  music  and 
Russian  feeling  must  have  passed  into  them.  He  must 
have  touched  the  Orient  there  as  he  did  later  through 
Japan.  And  surely  the  essence  of  Russian  art  is  in 
just  this  union  of  intense,  bald  realism  with  the  most 
subtle,  far-reaching  suggestion  of  the  unlimited,  the 
unexplored,  the  forever  unknown.  Russia  is  childhood 
intensely  sophisticated.  And  so  was  Whistler. 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  that  the  combination  in  Whist- 
ler of  the  most  lucid,  direct,  energetic  intelligence  with 
the  complete  general  ignorance  I  have  noted  earlier 
led  to  exactly  this  result,  of  the  vivid  blending  of  pre- 
cision with  mystery.  Clear-sighted  and  observant  as  he 
was,  there  is  no  sense  of  modern  life  in  him,  no  portrayal 
of  the  quick,  active,  current  movement  of  the  contem- 
porary world,  no  such  portrayal  of  any  world.  The  intel- 
ligence seems  to  clarify  simply  for  the  purpose  of  ob- 
scuring. The  total  result  of  the  age-long  development 
of  such  a  magnificent  instrument  as  human  reason, 
as  Whistler  illustrates  it,  is  to  stultify  itself,  to  show 
with  blinding  flashes  the  boundless  region  of  impen- 
etrable shadow.  And  in  this  phase  of  Whistler's  art 
nothing  is  more  symbolical  and  suggestive  than  the 
nocturnes  with  fireworks.  The  glare  of  the  falling 

109 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS    . 

rocket  makes  the  involving  darkness  oppress  you  with 
a  negative  visibility  that  is  maddening. 

It  is  in  view  of  this  union  of  intense  intellectual 
clearness  with  mystery  that  we  must  read  all  Whist- 
ler's perplexing  remarks  about  nature.  Nature  was 
crude  multiplicity.  To  the  unseeing  eye,  to  the  unaided 
imagination  she  would  not  yield  her  secret  or  tell  her 
story.  It  was  the  artist's  business  and  his  triumph  to 
select,  to  isolate,  to  emphasize,  to  coordinate,  so  as  to 
suggest  the  emotion  he  wished  to  convey,  no  other  and 
no  more.  Here,  again,  the  parallel  of  music  would  have 
illustrated  better  than  any  analysis  of  painting.  Every 
sound  that  music  uses  is  given  in  nature,  but  given  in 
a  vast  and  tangled  disorder  which,  to  a  sensitive  ear, 
results  as  often  in  pain  as  in  pleasure.  The  musician's 
genius  brings  this  chaos  into  an  ordered  scheme  of 
harmonized  delight.  To  Whistler's  artistic  instinct  the 
final  and  perfect  triumph  of  human  intelligence  was 
the  transforming  of  confusion  into  mystery. 

Many  have  been  puzzled  by  Whistler's  dislike  of  the 
country  and  even  abuse  of  it.  The  explanation  is  sim- 
ple. In  the  first  place,  he  had  never  lived  in  the  country. 
His  experience  of  it  was  the  tourist's,  and  nature  to  the 
tourist  is  a  mere  panoramic  display,  a  succession  of 
vulgar  excitements  from  an  ever  higher  mountain  or 
deeper  sea.  Nature  to  the  tourist  is  scenery,  not  feeling. 
This  is  what  Whistler  meant  when  he  returned  from  a 
visit  to  the  English  lakes  and  said  that  the  mountains 
"were  all  little  round  hills  with  little  round  trees  out  of 
a  Noah's  ark"; 51  when  he  complained  in  general  that 
there  were  too  many  trees  in  the  country,  and  even 

110 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLEP 

grumbled  to  a  friend,  who  urged  the  glory  of  the  stars, 
"there's  too  many  of  them."52  If  he  had  grown  up 
with  an  exquisite  threshold  beauty,  such  as  hovers  in 
the  lovely  lines  of  Cowper, 

"  Scenes  that  soothed 

Or  charmed  me  young,  no  longer  young,  I  find 
Still  soothing  and  of  power  to  charm  me  still," 

his  brush  would  have  drawn  out  the  charm  as  few  had 
ever  done  before.  But  he  dwelt  in  cities.  Huge  cas- 
ual doses  of  nature  first  surfeited  and  then  starved  him. 
Moreover,  he  held,  it  may  be  justly,  that  the  deepest 
fountains  of  mystery  are  not  even  wide  fields  and  quiet 
skies,  but  the  human  eye  and  the  human  heart. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  theory  of  mystery  as  I 
have  elaborated  it  —  perhaps  too  subtly  —  is  not  ex- 
plicit in  any  writing  or  recorded  speech  of  Whistler 
himself.  When  one  has  it  in  mind,  however,  there  is 
a  curious  interest  in  catching  the  notes  and  echoes  of 
it  in  his  own  words.  Thus,  in  practical  matters,  take  his 
remark  to  one  who  commented  on  the  unfinished  con- 
dition of  Whistler's  dwelling.  "You  see,  I  do  not  care 
for  settling  down  anywhere.  Where  there  is  no  more 
space  for  improvement,  or  dreaming  about  improve- 
ment, where  mystery  is  hi  perfect  shape,  it  is  finis — the 
end  —  death.  There  is  no  hope,  nor  outlook  left."  M 
Or  take  the  same  instinct  in  a  more  artistic  con- 
nection. "They  talk  about  the  blue  skies  of  Italy, — 
the  skies  of  Italy  are  not  blue,  they  are  black.  You  do 
not  see  blue  skies  except  in  Holland  and  here,  where 
you  get  great  white  clouds,  and  then  the  spaces  be- 
tween are  blue!  and  in  Holland  there  is  atmosphere, 

111 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

and  that  means  mystery.  There  is  mystery  here,  too, 
and  the  people  don't  want  it.  What  they  like  is  when 
the  east  wind  blows,  when  you  can  look  across  the 
river  and  count  the  wires  in  the  canary  bird's  cage 
on  the  other  side."  64  Finally,  take  the  wonderful 
words  about  painting  in  the  twilight,  full  of  mystery 
and  vague  suggestion  as  a  poem  of  Shelley:  "As  the 
light  fades  and  the  shadows  deepen,  all  the  petty 
and  exacting  details  vanish;  everything  trivial  dis- 
appears, and  I  see  things  as  they  are,  in  great,  strong 
masses;  the  buttons  are  lost,  but  the  garment  re- 
mains; the  garment  is  lost,  but  the  sitter  remains;  the 
sitter  is  lost,  but  the  shadow  remains.  And  that,  night 
cannot  efface  from  the  painter's  imagination."  "  Even 
allowing  for  the  touch  of  Whistler's  natural  irony,  such  a 
view  of  art  seems  to  amend  Gautier's  celebrated  phrase 
into  "I  am  a  man  for  whom  the  invisible  world  exists," 
and  to  give  double  emphasis  to  the  lines  of  Keats, 

"  Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 
Are  sweeter." 

So  we  find  in  Whistler,  as  we  found  implicit  in  Mark 
Twain  and  Sidney  Lanier  and  explicit  in  Henry  Adams, 
the  immense  and  overwhelming  heritage  of  ignorance 
which  the  nineteenth  century  transmitted  to  the  twen- 
tieth. But  whereas  Mark  erected  ignorance  into  a  dog- 
matic religion  of  negation,  and  Adams  trifled  with  it, 
and  Lanier  battled  with  it,  Whistler  drew  out  of  it  the 
enduring  solace  of  artistic  effort,  and  applied  to  its 
persistent  torment  the  immortal,  divine  recipe  for  cure 
of  headache,  heartache,  soul-ills,  body-ills,  poverty, 
ignominy,  contempt,  neglect,  and  pain,  the  creation,  or 
even  the  attempted  creation,  of  things  beautiful. 


V 

JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 


CHRONOLOGY 

James  Gillespie  Elaine. 

Born,  West  Brownsville,  Pennsylvania, 

January  31,  1830. 

Married  Harriet  Stanwood,  June  30,  1850. 
Removed  to  Maine,  1854. 
Speaker  of  Maine  House  of  Representatives, 

1861, 1862. 

Elected  to  Congress,  1862. 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 

1869-1875. 

Mulligan  Investigation,  1876. 
Senator,  1876-1881. 
Secretary  of  State,  1881. 
Nominated  for  the  Presidency,  1884. 
Secretary  of  State,  1889-1892. 
Died,  January  27,  1893. 


JAMES  G.  ELAINE 


V 

JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 


THE  best  way  to  get  acquainted  with  Elaine  is  through 
Mrs.  Elaine's  delightful  letters.  In  the  most  natural, 
most  intimate  fashion  she  reflects  the  whole  course  of 
her  distinguished  husband's  career,  by  glimpses  and, 
as  it  were,  afar  off,  yet  with  a  vividness  of  suggestion 
and  comprehension  that  no  formal  biography  can  equal. 
And  she  was  a  most  interesting  person  herself,  a  soul 
of  inten'se  emotion  and  sympathy,  of  keen  insight,  of 
playful  humor,  which  sometimes,  to  be  sure,  developed 
into  a  pungency  of  phrase  not  wholly  beneficial  to  the 
mistress  of  it.  She  had  no  love  of  notoriety,  of  great 
station,  oh,  no!  Yet  what  she  does  not  want,  stings 
her,  if  she  misses  it;  and  she  writes  of  Mrs.  Cleveland, 
"Feminine  Frances  is  spelt  with  an  'e.'  Think  of  the 
first  lady  in  the  land,  who  is  not  your  chere  m£re."  l 
She  does  not  pretend  to  influence  her  husband,  oh,  no ! 
Yet  the  husband  declares  that  "the  advice  of  a  sensi- 
ble woman  in  matters  of  statecraft  is  invaluable,"  2 
and  what  charming  significance  there  is  in  the  wife's 
quiet  remark,  "He  loves  the  confessional  and  the  lay 
sister  (me)  —  why  I  do  not  know,  as  I  always  shrive 
him  out  of  hand."  * 

Without  making  any  odious  comparisons  as  to  the 
male  objects,  I  must  say  that  Mrs.  Elaine's  letters 

115 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

have  enabled  me  to  understand  Lady  Macbeth  better 
than  ever  before.  There  is  the  same  mixture  of  adora- 
tion and  fathomless  pity,  of  warm  motherly  domestic 
comfort  and  eager  stimulus,  with  which  Lady  Macbeth 
surveyed,  sustained,  and  prompted  her  husband's 
lofty,  if  somewhat  checkered,  career.  To  be  sure,  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  that  Lady  Macbeth  could  have 
achieved  the  following  comprehensive  eulogy;  yet  who 
can  tell?  "Those  who  know  him  most,  love  him  best.  I 
dare  to  say  that  he  is  the  best  man  I  have  ever  known. 
Do  not  misunderstand  me,  I  do  not  say  that  he  is 
the  best  man  that  ever  lived,  but  that  of  all  the  men 
whom  I  have  thoroughly  known,  he  is  the  best."  *  Is 
not  that  a  text  for  meditation  through  a  long  summer's 
day? 

It  may  be  fairly  said  that  Elaine's  whole  life  was 
political.  Even  in  his  Pennsylvania  boyhood  whiffs  of 
political  passion  played  around  him,  and  his  child  let- 
ters of  the  forties  show  more  interest  in  politics  than 
in  any  other  earthly  thing.  For  a  short  time  he  taught 
in  a  blind  asylum,  and  the  wicked  insinuate  that  he 
here  became  an  adept  in  making  the  blind  see  whatever 
he  wished  them  to.  He  married  at  twenty  years  of 
age,  in  1850.  He  then  went  to  Maine,  to  edit  a  paper, 
and  for  the  next  forty  years  he  and  politics  were  united 
so  that  only  death  could  part  them. 

Before  losing  ourselves  in  the  political  vortex,  how- 
ever, it  will  be  well  to  establish  thoroughly  the  general 
elements  of  the  man's  character  on  which  his  public 
career  was  built. 

His  distinguishing  intellectual  trait  was  intense  ac- 

116 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

tivity.  He  was  a  fairly  wide  and  always  an  acute  and 
comprehensive  reader.  He  is  said  to  have  read  Scott's 
"Napoleon"  before  he  was  eight  and  all  Plutarch  be- 
fore he  was  nine.  If  so,  it  indicates  his  natural  predi- 
lections. He  had  a  singular  power  of  abstraction  in  all 
mental  labor.  He  did  not  require  solitude  or  quiet, 
but  could  read  and  write  and  think  with  the  whole 
domestic  hurly-burly  going  on  about  him,  and  liked 
it.  He  touched  all  sorts  of  subjects  lightly  and  vividly, 
with  illumination,  if  not  penetration.  Mrs.  Elaine 
goes  with  him  to  an  astronomical  observatory,  and 
when  they  get  home,  comments:  Mr.  Elaine  "demon- 
strates astronomically  that  Mars  could  not  have  any 
moons,  and  with  such  a  scientific  aroma  that  it  would 
deceive  the  very  elect,  if  they  did  not  know  that  he 
does  not  know,  and  knows  we  know  that  he  does 
not  know  anything  about  it."  5  This  suggests,  what  is 
everywhere  evident,  that,  though  by  no  means  de- 
ficient in  thoughts,  Elaine  was  on  all  occasions  and  in 
all  connections  an  ingenious  and  unfailing  master  of 
words.  It  would  be  libelous  to  say  that  words  were  the 
whole  of  him.  They  were  not,  ever.  But  they  played 
a  large  part  in  his  life,  much  larger  than  he  himself 
realized,  and  most  of  his  writing  suggests  a  splendid 
facility  and  felicity  in  words.  His  letters  snap  and 
sparkle  with  them.  His  "Eulogy"  on  Garfield,  which 
Senator  Hoar  rather  wildly  calls,  "one  of  the  treas- 
ures of  our  literature,"  is  at  any  rate  an  interesting 
specimen  of  abundant  diction  as  well  as  of  genuine 
feeling.  The  two  bulky  volumes  of  "Twenty  Years  in 
Congress"  are  almost  oppressive  hi  a  verbal  extension 

117 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

which  tends  to  obscure  their  real  shrewdness,  common 
sense,  and  sanity. 

In  the  same  way  it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  get 
through  the  covering  of  words  to  Elaine's  real  feeling 
about  the  most  serious  things.  When  he  writes  to  his 
son  that  "there  is  no  success  in  this  life  that  is  not 
founded  on  virtue  and  purity,  and  a  religious  conse- 
cration of  all  we  have  to  God,"  e  I  would  not  for  a  mo- 
ment imply  that  he  did  not  mean  it;  but  it  did  sound 
well.  The  utter  absence  in  Mrs.  Elaine's  printed  let- 
ters of  all  religious  suggestion,  both  for  him  and  for 
her,  is  very  noticeable ;  but  with  it  we  must  instantly 
place  Elaine's  own  fine  reference  to  "those  topics  of 
personal  religion,  concerning  which  noble  natures  have 
an  unconquerable  reserve."  7  It  is  certain  that  he  was 
zealous  in  his  church  membership,  taught  in  Sunday- 
School  so  as  to  produce  a  lasting  impression,8  and 
liked  at  all  times  to  discuss  theology,  as  to  discuss  any- 
thing else.  But  he  was  intensely  occupied  with  the 
affairs  of  this  world  and  his  daily  attitude  was  quite  the 
reverse  of  that  of  the  old  Scotchman  whose  caustic  words 
he  enjoyed  putting  into  the  mouth  of  a  theological  dis- 
putant: "I  meddle  only  with  the  things  o'  God  which 
I  cannot  change,  rather  than  with  the  things  o'  man 
where  I  might  do  harm."  9 

If  practical  preoccupations  somewhat  interfered 
with  Elaine's  religion,  they  cut  him  off  almost  entirely 
from  the  delight  of  art  and  beauty.  No  doubt  he  talked 
about  these  things,  but  he  had  not  time  to  feel  them. 
When  he  was  first  in  Europe,  he  wrote  with  enthusi- 
asm of  a  Rubens  picture  and  Mrs.  Elaine  mentions 

118 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

his  interest  in  picture-buying.  Yet  during  their  long 
stay  in  Florence  in  the  eighties  it  is  remarkable  that 
her  letters,  which  speak  of  everything,  make  no  refer- 
ence whatever  to  the  charm  of  old  painting  and  sculp- 
ture, and  in  Florence  too!  Poetry  he  quoted,  but 
neither  read  nor  cared  for.  One  form  of  art  alone 
really  took  hold  of  him.  He  liked  to  build  houses  for 
himself  and  his  friends  and  to  set  the  houses  in  sur- 
roundings of  exquisite  natural  beauty.  Without  having 
time  to  think  much  of  the  attractions  of  the  external 
world,  it  is  evident  that  he  felt  them. 

For,  if  he  did  not  care  for  art,  the  cause  was  lack  of 
leisure,  not  lack  of  feeling;  and  his  sensibility  in  all 
directions  was  quick  and  wide,  perhaps  profound.  Mrs. 
Elaine's  account  of  his  emotion  when  writing  the  Gar- 
field  "Eulogy"  is  pathetic  in  the  candor  of  its  sym- 
pathy. After  depleting  two  handkerchiefs,  his  only 
resource  was  to  retire  to  solitude.10  Or  again,  the 
sensibility  would  manifest  itself  in  keen  excitement,  in 
turbid  restlessness,  in  the  eager  desire  to  go  somewhere, 
see  somebody,  do  something.  The  external  man,  as 
revealed  to  the  public  and  to  superficial  observer^  of 
course  veiled  all  this  swift  impulse  under  decorous  con- 
trol. But  Mrs.  Elaine  saw  everything  and  tells  every- 
thing, if  you  know  how  to  listen  to  her. 

Health?  Elaine  in  his  later  years  became  morbid 
about  his  health,  and  at  all  times,  though  he  was  nat- 
urally active  and  vigorous,  a  threatening,  even  fan- 
cied, symptom  was  enough  to  distract  him  from  the 
most  important  preoccupations.  Even  his  children 
rallied  him  on  the  subject.  "I  am  sorry  Dr.  Barker  is 

119 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

coming  on,"  writes  Emmons,  "for  I  can  already  see 
father  furtively  putting  new  prescriptions  in  his  pocket 
and  preparing  himself  for  another  conflict  with  mod- 
ern drugs.  Don't  let  them  be  alone  together  for  a 
moment."  n  And  Mrs.  Blaine  is  delightful  in  her  re- 
morseless tenderness.  Nobody  could  care  more  lov- 
ingly for  real,  or  even  for  imagined  ills,  than  she,  but 
she  understands  their  nature  and  their  significance, 
and  sets  it  off  with  delicate  humor.  "Your  father,"  she 
says,  "who  always  rises  to  the  occasion  of  an  imaginary 
peril,  wisely  skipping  the  real  ones."  12  Is  it  a  question 
of  a  house?  "There  is  a  house  there,  which  he  thinks 
would  build  up  his  health — argument  with  him  irre- 
sistible." 18  Is  it  a  question  of  an  agent?  "  A  very  swell- 
looking  young  man,  with  dyspepsia  powders,  which  he 
says  are  the  daily  food  of  Aldrich,  Hiscock,  and  other 
great  men.  I  see  a  generous  box  of  them  lying  on  the 
table."  14  And  for  all  her  love  and  for  all  her  sympathy, 
there  are  moments  when  even  her  patience  wavers  a 
little.  "Himself  is  surely  improving,  and  were  he 
other  than  the  child  of  genius  would  probably  not  know 
there  was  anything  the  matter  with  him."15  Again: 
"  And  with  these  prodigious  powers,  the  chimney  corner 
and  speculation  on  his  own  physical  condition  are  all 
that  he  allows  himself.  . .  .  This  is  one  of  the  days 
when  I  am  not  in  sympathy  with  disease."  16 

With  such  extreme  sensibility  and  such  proneness  to 
imagine  good  and  ill  fortune  of  all  kinds,  it  was  to  be 
expected  that  Blaine  would  be  a  man  of  the  most  mer- 
curial disposition,  liable  to  be  unduly  depressed  or 
exalted.  It  is  fascinating  to  watch  the  reflection  of 

120 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

this  tendency  in  the  unconscious  intimate  record  of  his 
best  beloved.  Who  better  than  she  could  indicate  "  an 
abasement  of  soul  and  an  abandonment  of  hope,  such 
as  those  only  know  who  have  been  fed  and  nurtured  on 
political  aspirations  and  convictions"?  17  Again,  she 
could  suggest  with  a  quiet  touch  the  intense  reaction, 
the  eager  burst  of  living,  that  was  thrown  into  the  most 
trivial  pursuit  when  mounting  spirits  put  all  care  and 
doubt  behind  them:  "Two  days  of  coupe,  shopping 
(and  —  shall  I  say  it  without  danger  of  being  misun- 
derstood?—  your  Father),  reconcile  me  to  home  and 
a  new  departure."18  While  the  immediate  contrast  has 
rarely  been  better  drawn  than  in  her  vivid  account 
of  two  morning  greetings:  "  *O  Mother,  Mother 
Elaine,  I  have  so  much  to  do,  I  know  not  which  way 
to  turn.'  'Good!'  said  I.  'Yes,'  said  he,  'is  n't  it  per- 
fectly splendid?'  A  very  different  cry  from  the  '0 
Mother,  Mother  Elaine,  tell  me  what  is  the  matter 
with  me!'  which  has  so  often  assailed  my  earliest  wak- 
ing ear,  and  which  always  makes  my  very  soul  die 
within  me.",19 

Among  the  various  real  and  fancied  grounds  of 
depression,  nothing,  unless  considerations  of  his  own 
health,  affected  Elaine  more  than  considerations  of 
his  wife's.  When  she  is  ill,  even  not  seriously,  he  can- 
cels all  his  political  engagements,  and  remains  at  her 
bedside,  perturbed  to  excess,  and  causing  more  dis- 
comfort than  he  relieves.  "In  my  room  he  sat  on  my 
bed  or  creaked  across  the  floor  from  corner  to  corner 
by  the  hour,  making  me  feel  a  guilty  wretch  to  cause 
him  so  much  misery.  He  is  a  dear,  dear  old  fellow."  * 

121 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

For  his  family  was  dear  to  him  as  he  was  to  them,  and 
no  picture  of  him  could  be  complete  which  did  not  show 
his  charm  and  infinite  affection  in  the  delightful  atmos- 
phere of  home.  His  children  he  always  speaks  of  with 
thoughtful  tenderness  and  he  not  only  watched  over 
them  but  enjoyed  them.  Not  many  busy  fathers,  how- 
ever loving,  could  have  made  and  meant  the  apt  reply, 
when  asked  "How  can  you  write  with  these  children 
here?"  "  It  is  because  they  are  here  that  I  can  write." 21 
And  he  could  do  more  than  attend  to  his  deepest  con- 
cerns in  their  presence.  He  could  and  did  do  what  is 
perhaps  even  more  difficult,  take  them  into  his  counsels 
and  discuss  large  matters  of  thought  and  profound  ques- 
tions of  state  with  intimate  freedom  at  his  own  fire- 
side, thus  making  it,  his  biographer  says,  "the  happiest 
fireside  in  the  world."  22 

As  for  Mrs.  Elaine,  his  tenderness  for  her  is  written 
all  over  his  life  and  hers.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
such  high-mettled  natures  could  pass  long  years  together 
entirely  without  friction.  And  the  husband  occasion- 
ally indulges  in  the  chaffing  criticism  which  rather  ex- 
presses tenderness  than  dulls  it.  "  I  drove  the  pair,  my 
wife  rode;  she  is  not  generally  driven,  but  in  family 
arrangements  she  more  commonly  drives."  23  Or  di- 
rectly to  her,  after  describing  a  swift  rush  of  occupa- 
tions and  preoccupations:  "Now,  was  n't  this  making 
the  most  of  a  day?  Had  it  been  you,  you  would  have 
sat  down  and  cried."  24  But  the  depth  and  perma- 
nence of  the  tenderness  are  everywhere  felt,  even  when 
not  uttered,  and  they  are  manifested  by  the  constant 
need  and  constant  appeal  far  more  than  could  be  done 

122 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

by  any  power  of  language.  The  most  exquisite  witness 
to  them  is  their  reflection  in  Mrs.  Elaine's  own  letters. 
"So  much  of  life  and  so  much  love,"  she  says  of  her 
family,  "do  not  often  go  together."  n  And  I  do  not 
know  where  to  find  summed  up  in  briefer,  more  expres- 
sive words  the  typical  attitude  of  a  devoted  wife  toward 
an  affectionate  husband  than  in  the  following  phrase: 
"I  miss  his  unvarying  attention,  and  as  constant 
neglect."  26 

When  it  came  to  enlarging  regard  beyond  the  family 
circle,  Elaine,  like  most  busy  men  with  happy  homes, 
does  not  appear  to  have  had  any  very  intimate  friends, 
at  least  in  later  life.  But  the  list  of  those  who  were 
deeply  attached  to  him  is  long  and  his  unswerving 
loyalty  to  all  of  them  is  unquestioned.  As  to  his  general 
social  qualities,  it  is  evident  that  he  was  born  to  mix 
with  men,  to  please  them,  and  to  succeed  with  them. 
He  liked  his  fellows;  did  not  like  to  be  alone,  but  more 
than  that,  really  liked  to  be  with  others,  and  there  is 
an  important  difference  between  the  two  instincts. 
Yet,  though  he  enjoyed  society  and  sought  it  and  liked 
to  play  a  prominent  part  in  it,  he  was  always  simple 
and  natural,  always  himself.  Mrs.  Elaine  catches  this 
inimitably,  as  usual:  "Your  Father,  with  that  inde- 
pendence of  criticism  which  makes  him  so  delightful 
and  surprising  a  comrade."  27  He  even  carried  artless 
candor  to  the  point  of  abstraction,  was  careless  about 
his  appearance,  careless  about  his  clothes,  would  sit 
in  a  merry  company  entirely  lost  and  absorbed  in 
thought.  Then  he  would  return  to  himself,  insist  that 
he  had  not  been  absent,  and  with  incomparable  spirit 

123 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

and  vivacity  make  up  for  any  absence  by  a  presence 
that,  though  never  obtrusive,  was  all-pervading  and 
triumphant. 

When  we  srm  up  this  social  attraction  in  Senator 
Hoar's  reference  to  "the  marvelous  personal  charm  of 
his  delightful  and  gracious  manners,"  28  we  are  pre- 
pared to  understand  something  of  Elaine's  prominent 
place  in  the  political  life  of  his  time. 

ii 

FOR,  whatever  else  he  was,  and  no  matter  what  his 
achievement  in  other  lines,  he  was  always,  by  common 
consent,  a  consummate  politician.  He  could  sway  great 
masses  of  men  by  his  personality  as  few  leaders  in 
American  history  have  been  able  to  do.  "Mr.  Elaine 
was  certainly  the  most  fascinating  man  I  have  ever 
known  in  politics,"  says  Andrew  D.  White.  "No  won- 
der that  so  many  Republicans  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
seemed  ready  to  give  their  lives  to  elect  him."  29  To 
be  sure,  he  had  enemies  as  well  as  friends,  and  both 
were  ardent.  "There  has  probably  never  been  a  man 
in  our  history  upon  whom  so  few  people  looked  with 
indifference,"  says  Senator  Hoar.  "He  was  born  to  be 
loved  or  hated.  Nobody  occupied  a  middle  ground  as 
to  him."  *°  Yet  even  his  enemies  felt  it  difficult  to  re- 
sist his  charm.  On  one  occasion,  when  his  name  was 
mentioned  at  a  great  Democratic  meeting,  the  whole 
audience  rose  in  applause. Il  After  he  had  made  some 
rather  irritating  decision  as  Speaker,  one  Democrat 
was  heard  to  say  privately  to  another,  "Now  there's 
Elaine  —  but,  damn  him,  I  do  love  him."  "  In  his  later 

124 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

years,  when  he  was  campaigning  for  others  rather  than 
for  himself,  he  was  everywhere  received  with  what 
John  Hay  called  "a  fury  of  affection."  5I 

Something  in  his  appearance  must  have  charmed 
people.  As  we  look  at  his  portraits  to-day,  it  is  not  quite 
easy  to  say  what  this  was.  Indeed,  hi  some  of  them 
there  is  a  look  about  the  eyes  that  repels.  But  there 
must  have  been  in  his  manner  and  bearing  a  spirit, 
a  vivacity,  an  instant  response  to  all  minds  and  tempers 
that  does  not  get  into  the  portraits. 

At  any  rate,  the  charm  was  there,  and  was  irre- 
sistible; and  one  s  searches  curiously  to  find  out  the 
causes  of  it.  It  was  effective  with  individuals,  taken 
singly.  And  here  it  seems  to  lie  largely  in  a  subtle  and 
instant  understanding.  Elaine  loved  to  probe  men's 
characters.  He  was  immensely  attentive  to  what  others 
were  saying  and  thinking  and  doing.  "Your  Father, 
whose  quick  ear  catches  everything  that  is  said," 
observes  his  most  loving  critic. 84  He  not  only  caught 
what  was  said,  but  he  interpreted  it,  put  two  and  two 
and  ten  and  ten  together,  and  built  men's  minds  out 
of  their  common,  careless  actions.  And  as  he  understood, 
so  he  sympathized,  showed  others  that  he  thought 
and  also  felt  as  they  did.  One  of  his  old  pupils  said  of 
his  early  days  of  teaching  that  when  boys  came  to 
confess  to  him,  he  knew  what  they  had  to  say  before 
they  spoke.85  It  was  always  so.  He  came  among  the 
people  and  stepped  right  into  their  lives.  "Wherever 
man  earns  his  daily  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow, 
there  Mr.  Elaine  enters,  and  is  ever  welcome,"  said 
one  of  his  neighbors."  There  was  some  policy  in  this 

125 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

undoubtedly;  but  there  was  also  some  love.  It  is  im- 
possible to  dispute  the  admirable  verdict  of  his  bi- 
ographer, "He  had  a  passion  for  human  happiness."  w 
And  it  was  a  real  passion,  not  a  whim  or  fancy:  life 
and  his  political  pursuits  were  to  him  always  a  serious 
matter.  He  had  plenty  of  jesting  at  his  command, 
plenty  of  easy  gayety.  But  he  was  never  disposed 
to  take  ambition  or  success  or  the  achievement  of 
great  public  objects  after  the  fashion  of  Seward,  as  an 
exciting  game,  or  a  neatly  fashioned  and  highly  fin- 
ished work  of  art.  He  moved  the  souls  of  others  be- 
cause their  souls  and  their  welfare  and  their  hopes 
moved  him. 

Also,  he  not  only  understood  and  felt,  but  he  remem- 
bered, and  it  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  value  of 
this  gift  in  dealing  with  men.  He  would  meet  a  man 
whom  he  had  not  seen  for  twenty  years  and  recall 
little  details  of  their  last  interview.  He  would  shake 
hands  with  the  old  farmers  and  remember  their  white 
horses  and  the  clever  trades  they  made.  "How  in 
the  world  did  he  know  I  had  a  sister  Mary,  who  married 
a  Jones?"  said  one  fellow,  and  went  and  voted  for 
him.38  He  professed  that  the  memory  was  instinctive; 
and  when  asked,  "How  can  you  remember  so?"  an- 
swered, "How  can  you  help  it?"  w  But  he  knew  well 
enough  that  there  was  effort  and  attention  in  it;  and 
attention,  as  Chesterfield  said,  is  the  foundation  of 
courtesy.  One  day  a  carriage  drove  up.  "  I  suspect  that 
carriage  is  coming  for  you,"  said  a  friend.  "Yes,"  said 
Blaine,  "but  that  is  not  the  point.  The  point  is  that 
there  is  a  man  on  that  front  seat  whom  I  have  not  seen 

126 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

* 

for  twenty-seven  years,  and  I  have  got  just  two  minutes 
and  a  half  to  remember  his  name  in."  40  He  remem- 
bered it. 

Probably  all  these  things  together  make  what  we 
call  magnetism.  It  is  interesting  to  hear  Elaine's  own 
opinion  of  this  quality,  as  embodied  in  some  one  else. 
"What  precisely  is  meant  by  magnetism  it  might  be 
difficult  to  define,  but  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
Mr.  Burlingame  possessed  a  great  reserve  of  that  sub- 
tile, forceful,  overwhelming  power  which  the  word 
magnetism  is  used  to  signify."  41  Few  men  have  pos- 
sessed more  of  it  than  Elaine. 

As  it  attracted  individuals,  so  it  appealed  to  vast 
masses,  who  never  came  into  direct  contact  with  him 
at  all.  He  was  not  a  great  orator.  But  he  never  said 
too  much  and  what  he  did  say,  told.  He  was  wonder- 
fully quick  at  retort,  rarely  let  a  critic  or  questioner 
get  the  best  of  him.  He  was  energetic  and  straight- 
forward. His  reputation  in  politics  leads  you  to  ex- 
pect rhetoric  in  his  speeches.  But  it  is  not  there,  or 
rarely.  Instead,  there  is  quick  and  telling  common  sense. 
And  he  was  simple,  spontaneous,  appeared  to  speak 
and  did  speak  direct  from  the  heart,  often  with  imme- 
diate and  profound  emotion.  For  it  is  characteristic  of 
the  man,  and  accounts  for  much  of  his  success,  that  he 
combined  impulse  and  passion  with  a  singular  degree 
of  far-reaching  foresight  and  control. 

It  was  this  divination  and  foresight,  even  more  than 
his  gift  of  speech,  that  enabled  him  to  hold  and  guide 
the  masses.  He  was  a  natural  leader;  not  merely  hi  the 
organizing  sense,  for  he  often  left  organizing  to  others; 

127 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

but,  as  Senator  Hoar  says,  he  touched  the  people  be- 
cause he  was  like  the  people. 42  He  saw  and  foresaw 
the  issues  that  would  animate  and  the  right  moment 
for  introducing  them;  and  he  knew  how  to  give  them 
the  form  that  clutched  men's  hearts. 

No  man  has  ever  understood  better  the  value  as 
well  as  the  defects  of  the  American  party  system. 
His  friends  and  his  enemies  were  usually  those  of  his 
party.  He  may  perhaps  have  been  inclined  to  favor 
and  reward  the  former  unduly,  and  it  cannot  be  de- 
nied that  he  sometimes  fell  into  extremes  of  parti- 
san and  personal  bitterness  of  the  sort  that  drove  his 
wife  to  exclaim,  "I  hate  to  hate,  but  I  am  in  dan- 
ger of  that  feeling  now."43  But  for  the  most  part 
bis  grudges  were  laid  aside  as  readily  as  they  were 
adopted  and  he  viewed  political  machinery  merely  as 
a  superb  agency  to  accomplish  a  particular  end. 

His  standing  as  a  politician,  then,  no  one  can  dis- 
pute. Moreover,  it  is  universally  admitted  that  he 
was  a  remarkably  quick,  effective,  and,  on  the  whole, 
fair  presiding  officer,  in  the  legislature  and  in  Congress. 
Was  he  a  great  statesman?  On  one  side  of  statesman- 
ship, that  of  slow,  careful,  matured,  solid  construc- 
tion, he  seems  to  have  accomplished  little.  His  name 
is  widely  identified  with  a  protective  tariff  and  he 
spoke  and  worked  for  it  all  his  life;  but  he  was  not 
connected  with  any  actual  tariff  measure,  unless  the 
reciprocity  element  in  the  McKinley  Bill.  As  secretary 
of  state  in  1881  and  again,  under  Harrison,  from  1889 
to  1892,  he  dealt  with  various  large  questions  of  di- 
plomacy. His  action  was  always  clear,  incisive,  and 

128 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

vigorous.  His  logic  was  usually  reasonable  and  his 
aims  patriotic.  But  one  of  his  most  judicious  advo- 
cates speaks  of  his  "failure  in  tact  as  a  diplomatist" 
and  admits  that  he  was  a  little  too  prone  to  carry  the 
methods  of  congressional  debate  into  the  sedater  sphere 
of  diplomacy.  44  And  General  Sherman,  a  connection 
and  warm  friend,  says,  referring  to  his  executive  abil- 
ity, "His  qualities  are  literary,  not  administrative. 
...  I  would  not  choose  Elaine  to  command  a  reg- 
iment or  frigate  in  battle.  Many  an  inferior  man  would 
do  this  better  than  he."  45 

On  the  other  hand,  in  what  may  be  called  the  imag- 
inative side  of  statesmanship,  Elaine  was  admirable. 
His  mind  lived  in  and  with  large  ideas.  He  looked  for- 
ward, far  forward,  as  Seward  did,  and  built  ample, 
confident  projects  in  the  days  to  come.  His  discus- 
sions of  difficult  questions  were  almost  always  sane, 
simple,  reasonable.  Take,  for  instance,  his  speech  on 
the  Irish  problem,  at  Portland,  in  1886.  The  subject 
was  as  thorny  then  as  it  is  to-day,  and  I  do  not  know  who 
has  handled  it  with  more  discretion,  moderation,  and 
true  wisdom  than  Elaine  did.  An  even  larger  and  more 
important  matter  was  the  question  of  Pan-America. 
Elaine's  conception  of  this  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
own  time,  and  his  treatment  of  it,  both  in  planning 
the  Peace  Congress  and  afterwards  in  guiding  it,  was 
enlightened  and  enlightening.  I  do  not  know  what  can 
be  added  to  Mr.  Root's  admirable  remark  that  Elaine 
had  "that  imagination  which  enlarges  the  historian's 
understanding  of  the  past  into  the  statesman's  com- 
prehension of  the  future."  46 

129 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

On  the  whole,  most  persons  not  blinded  by  party 
prejudice  will  to-day,  I  think,  agree  with  Senator 
Hoar  that  Elaine  would  have  made  a  satisfactory  pres- 
ident, unless  as  they  take  exception  to  his  financial 
career. 

in 

FROM  his  youth  Elaine  had  a  natural  taste  for  busi- 
ness and  the  world  of  money.  None  of  his  biographers 
elucidates  very  thoroughly  the  transition  from  the  poor 
teacher  to  the  comfortably  situated,  if  not  wealthy, 
editor  who  at  an  early  age  threw  himself  into  politics. 
But  it  is  evident  that  at  all  times  he  had  an  instinct 
for  speculative  investments,  liked  the  excitement  of 
them,  and  needed  the  money.  Also,  in  business  as  in 
politics,  his  taste  was  rather  for  large  conception  than 
for  the  slow  and  methodical  handling  of  detail.  One 
of  Mrs.  Elaine's  delightful  sentences  tells,  or  suggests, 
all  we  need  to  know  on  this  head  (italics  mine): 
"My  dearer  self — and  certainly  he  might  apply  the 
title  with  another  significance  to  me  —  is  looking  up 
his  sadly  neglected  stocks —  All  that  fine  Fortunatus's 
purse  which  we  once  held  the  strings  of,  and  in  which 
we  had  only  to  insert  the  finger  to  pay  therewith  for 
the  house,  has  melted  from  the  grasp  which  too  carelessly 
held  it:9  47 

And  the  money  melted  not  only  from  careless  man- 
agement, but  from  direct  expenditure.  Elaine  was 
always  ready  to  give,  always  charitable.  No  appeal 
was  made  to  him  in  vain.  Hear  another  of  Mrs.  Elaine's 
quick  comments  on  charity  and  business:  "Father  had 

130 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

made  up  his  mind  this  morning  to  give  five  hundred 
dollars  to  the  Old  Ladies'  Home,  and  it  looks  like  a 
slap  in  the  face  from  Providence  to  find  things  going 
the  wrong  way  in  the  afternoon."  48  Naturally  the 
outgo  for  personal  living  was  not  less  in  proportion. 
Mrs.  Elaine  managed  as  best  she  could;  but  to  bring 
up  six  children  in  the  expensive  atmosphere  of  Wash- 
ington cost  money,  and  it  was  impossible  to  elude  the 
fact  or  to  forget  it. 

The  pressure,  the  financial  stringency,  are  every- 
where evident.  Mrs.  Elaine's  inimitable  candor 
pushes  through  all  her  sense  of  decorum.  "A  great 
family  are  we,  so  far  as  the  circulation  of  money  is  con- 
cerned. To-night  we  are  very  nearly  square  with  the 
world."  49  Again,  with  as  near  to  a  reflection  upon 
"the  best  man  she  ever  knew  thoroughly"  as  she  can 
permit  herself:  "I  have  drawn  so  much  money  this 
month,  how  can  any  one  who  never  listens  to  or  enters 
into  a  detail,  understand  it?"  60  And  Elaine's  own 
dry,  vivid  echo  fully  confirms  her  distresses:  "I  do  not 
really  know  which  way  to  turn  for  relief,  I  am  so  pressed 
and  hampered.  . .  .  Personally  and  pecuniarily,  I  am 
laboring  under  the  most  fearful  embarrassments."  51 
To  which  he  adds  elsewhere  this  telling  figure:  "If  I 
had  the  money  myself,  I  would  be  glad  to  advance  it 
to  you,  but  I  am  as  dry  as  a  contribution-box."  52 

Of  course  this  was  not  a  constant  condition.  Things 
looked  up  as  well  as  down.  But  money  poured  out, 
was  always  needed,  and,  as  is  the  inconvenient  nature 
of  money,  it  had  to  come  from  somewhere.  During 
the  later  sixties,  both  before  and  after  he  was  estab- 

131 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

lished  in  Congress,  Elaine  became  involved  in  com- 
plicated financial  transactions  with  a  certain  Warren 
Fisher,  Jr.,  with  whom  he  had  become  acquainted  when 
Fisher  was  connected  with  Elaine's  brother-in-law. 
At  Fisher's  instance  Elaine  agreed  to  dispose  of  a  large 
amount  of  first-mortgage  bonds  of  the  Little  Rock  and 
Fort  Smith  Railroad  to  his  friends  in  Maine.  The  bonds 
normally  carried  with  them  to  the  purchaser  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  land-grant  bonds  and  stock; 
but  in  this  case  these,  together  with  other  first-mort- 
gage bonds,  were  to  go  —  privately  —  to  Elaine  as  a 
commission.  This  transaction  in  itself  appears  far  from 
creditable,  but  Elaine  doubtless  held  that  he  was  con- 
ferring a  favor  and  deserved  to  be  remunerated  for 
his  time  and  trouble.  The  investment  did  not  turn 
out  successfully.  The  Little  Rock  bonds  fell,  and  Elaine 
felt  himself  obliged  in  honor  —  and  policy  —  to  pro- 
tect his  friends.  About  this  time  a  considerable  number 
of  Little  Rock  bonds  were  sold  to  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  and  to  the  Union  Pacific  roads  at  a  price 
largely  in  advance  of  the  market.  It  was  never  shown 
that  these  bonds  came  from  Elaine  and  he  was  able  to 
advance  specific  evidence  to  the  contrary.  But  much 
suspicion  attached  to  him  and  in  the  minds  of  many  it 
was  never  thoroughly  removed.  Also,  there  were  other 
dealings  with  Fisher,  more  or  less  unsavory. 

The  implication  through  it  all,  of  course,  was  that 
Elaine  was  trading  on  his  great  office  as  speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  and  his  opportunity  to 
favor  the  railroads.  No  corrupt  act  was  ever  directly 
and  clearly  proved  against  him.  But  various  passages 

132 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

in  his  letters  to  Fisher  seemed  to  make  the  charge 
plausible.  Shortly  before  taking  the  Little  Rock  bonds, 
Elaine  had  made  a  ruling  in  the  House,  of  importance 
to  the  road.  In  a  letter,  written  some  time  later,  he 
points  out  that,  while  doing  his  plain  duty,  he  had  con- 
ferred on  his  new  associates  a  considerable  benefit. 5I 
In  another  letter,  of  earlier  date,  he  observes,  "I  do 
not  feel  that  I  shall  prove  a  deadhead  in  the  enterprise, 
if  I  once  embark  in  it.  I  see  various  channels  in  which 
I  know  I  can  be  useful."  54  These  phrases  are  certainly 
not  conclusive;  but  they  are  damaging.  They  are  not 
made  less  so  by  a  sentence  in  one  of  Fisher's  letters  to 
Elaine:  "Owing  to  your  political  position,  you  were 
able  to  work  off  all  your  bonds  at  a  very  high  price; 
and  the  fact  is  well  known  to  others  as  well  as  myself."  " 
This  charge  Elaine  received  almost  cringingly  and  with 
no  denial  whatever. 

From  the  time  when  the  unpleasant  matter  was  first 
stirred  up,  not  long  before  the  presidential  nomina- 
tion of  1876,  Blame's  course  about  it  was  thoroughly 
unsatisfactory.  He  made  well-sounding  speeches  in 
the  House,  which  convinced  all  those  who  were  con- 
vinced already.  But  to  any  careful  scrutiny  it  was  ev- 
ident that  he  shuffled  and  prevaricated,  contradicted 
himself,  and  used  every  effort  to  conceal  what  in  the 
end  could  not  be  concealed.  He  declared  publicly  that 
the  very  attempt  to  cover  up  an  action  condemns  it; 
yet  he  urged  upon  Fisher  the  closest  secrecy.  "Burn 
this  letter,"  or  words  to  that  effect,  was  a  common 
phrase  with  him. 5*  It  was  perhaps  a  natural  one,  but 
it  fitted  the  Fisher  letters  too  well.  In  the  crisis  of 

133 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

his  difficulties  he  wrote  to  Fisher  enclosing  a  letter 
which  Fisher  was  to  write  to  him,  exonerating  him  from 
all  blame.  The  document  is  more  ingenious  than  in- 
genuous, and  it  is  not  pleasant  to  see  a  man  in  such  a 
situation  dictating  about  himself  a  sentence  like  the 
following:  "When  the  original  enterprise  failed,  I  knew 
with  what  severity  the  pecuniary  loss  fell  upon  you, 
and  with  what  integrity  and  nerve  you  met  it."  *7 

The  reader  will  ask  curiously  how  all  these  very  pri- 
vate letters  of  Elaine's  came  into  the  evidence.  The 
answer  involves  not  the  least  disagreeable  part  of  the 
whole  affair.  The  congressional  committee,  which  in- 
vestigated the  matter  in  the  spring  of  1876,  called  be- 
fore it  one  Mulligan,  who  had  been  in  the  employ  of 
Fisher.  Mulligan  had  possession  of  the  Elaine  corre- 
spondence and  proposed  to  produce  it.  This  annoyed 
Elaine  greatly.  He  had  an  interview  with  Mulligan 
and,  according  to  the  latter,  entreated  him  to  return 
the  letters,  resorting  to  suggestions  of  bribery  and  to 
threats  of  suicide.  All  this  Elaine  insisted  was  utterly 
false.  What  is  indisputable  is  that  he  got  the  letters  into 
his  hands,  with  at  least  the  implied  promise  to  restore 
them,  and  then  calmly  put  them  in  his  pocket  and 
walked  off  with  them,  urging  that  they  were  his  own 
private  property. 

As  a  climax  of  the  Mulligan  business,  Elaine  read 
the  letters  in  the  House  in  the  order  and  with  the  com- 
ments that  suited  him.  He  ended  his  speech  charac- 
teristically by  turning  on  the  investigating  committee 
and  accusing  them  of  suppressing,  for  partisan  pur- 
poses, evidence  that  they  knew  would  completely  clear 

134 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

him.  The  attack  was  unjustified  and,  with  Elaine's 
knowledge  of  the  facts,  discreditable;  but  for  the  mo- 
ment it  was  immensely  telling,  and  shortly  after,  as  a 
consequence  of  the  sudden  illness  which  helped  to  pre- 
vent Elaine  from  being  nominated,  the  immediate 
investigation  was  dropped.  The  infection  of  it,  how- 
ever, tainted  his  whole  career. 

What  interests  us  far  more  than  what  Elaine  ac- 
tually did  is  his  own  attitude  toward  his  own  actions. 
We  may  assume  with  entire  confidence  that  he  did  not 
for  a  moment  admit  to  himself  that  he  had  done  any- 
thing wrong.  We  have  not  only  Mrs.  Elaine's  partic- 
ular, triumphant,  if  perhaps  somewhat  prejudiced, 
assertion  that  he  was  the  best  man  she  ever  knew  thor- 
oughly, but  we  have  the  general  facts  of  human  nature. 
An  acute  observer  tells  us  that  "One  has  always  the 
support  of  one's  conscience,  even  when  one  commits 
the  worst  infamies.  In  fact,  that  is  precisely  what  en- 
ables us  to  commit  them."  The  dullest  of  human  spir- 
its is  inexhaustible  in  finding  excuses  for  its  own  con- 
duct, and  Elaine,  far  from  being  the  dullest,  was  one 
of  the  most  brilliant. 

Therefore  I  believe  he  was  perfectly  sincere  when  he 
declared  upon  the  floor  of  the  House,  "I  have  never 
done  anything  in  my  public  career  for  which  I  could  be 
put  to  the  faintest  blush  in  any  presence,  or  for  which 
I  cannot  answer  to  my  constituents,  my  conscience, 
and  the  great  Searcher  of  Hearts."  58  These  are  tre- 
mendous phrases.  Perhaps  no  living  man  could  utter 
them  with  entire  honesty,  and  they  show  the  fatal, 
delusive  power  of  words,  for  their  master  —  and  their 

135 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

victim.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt  Elaine  meant  them. 
Beyond  question  he  meant  the  far  more  impressive 
words,  spoken  in  privacy,  with  obviously  genuine 
emotion:  "When  I  think — when  I  think — that  there 
lives  in  this  broad  land  one  single  human  being  who 
doubts  my  integrity,  I  would  rather  have  stayed  —  " 69 
There  he  stopped,  but  his  gesture  showed  his  ear- 
nestness. 

It  is  intensely  curious  to  turn  from  these  statements 
to  the  pamphlet  issued  in  1884  by  the  Committee  of  One 
Hundred  and  see  the  explicit  analysis  of  what  appear  to 
be  Elaine's  six  deliberate  falsehoods.  The  thoughtful 
reader,  who  has  a  human  heart  himself,  will  manage 
to  divine  how  Elaine  explained  each  one  of  these.  But 
it  required  a  considerable  amount  of  ingenuity. 

Unquestionably  he  even  excused  to  himself  the  com- 
plicated course  of  shuffling  and  concealment  by  which 
he  endeavored  to  hide  all  his  proceedings  from  the 
beginning.  These  were  his  own  private  concerns,  he 
argued,  long  past  and  buried.  The  public  had  not 
conceivable  business  with  them  and  he  was  perfectly 
justified  in  making  every  possible  effort  to  put  the 
public  off  the  scent. 

Yet,  as  we  look  back  at  the  affair,  this  seems  to  have 
been  his  worst  mistake.  If  at  the  very  start  he  had  come 
out  with  perfect  candor,  told  the  story  of  the  whole 
transaction,  even  in  its  most  unfortunate  features, 
admitted  that  he  had  blundered  and  had  been  foolish 
as  well  as  apparently  culpable,  he  might  have  stormed 
the  country.  For  the  American  people  and  all  humanity 
love  nothing  better  than  a  man  who  acknowledges  his 

136 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

faults,  and  this  is  the  hardest  of  all  lessons  for  a  poli- 
tician to  learn.  Elaine  never  learned  it. 

As  to  the  business  morality  of  what  he  did,  it  is  of 
course  difficult  to  pass  a  complete  judgment  on  it, 
because  we  never  shall  know  all  the  facts.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  in  the  late  sixties  speculation  in 
railroads  was  a  mania  that  affected  most  business  men 
more  or  less.  Lowell,  who  was  by  no  means  friendly  to 
Elaine,  wrote:  "I  suspect  that  few  of  our  Boston  men 
who  have  had  to  do  with  Western  railways  have  been 
more  scrupulous."  60  Further,  it  must  especially  be 
remembered  that  in  all  his  long  career  after  1872  no 
suspicion  of  anything  corrupt  really  attached  to  Elaine, 
although  he  was  always  interested  in  speculative  in- 
vestments. Moreover,  the  bitter  partisan  animosity 
that  was  aroused  against  him  must  always  be  taken 
into  account.  The  most  honest  of  the  Mugwumps  did 
not  hesitate  to  exaggerate  well-grounded  suspicion  into 
fantastic  prejudice.  Even  Mr.  Rhodes,  sanest  and 
most  patient  of  judges,  who  in  his  eighth  volume  is, 
I  think,  somewhat  too  favorable  to  Elaine's  states- 
manship, speaks  in  volume  seven  of  his  "itching 
palm."  61  Now  Elaine's  palm  never  itched  with  greed. 
It  was  only  slippery  with  liberality. 

Elaine's  fundamental  error  was  when,  as  a  great 
political  officer  of  the  government,  he  engaged  in  dubi- 
ous speculation.  Senator  Hoar,  who  admires  him  and 
exonerates  him  from  all  wrong-doing,  yet  insists  that 
"members  of  legislative  bodies,  especially  great  polit- 
ical leaders  of  large  influence,  ought  to  be  careful  to 
keep  a  thousand  miles  off  from  relations  which  may 

137 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

give  rise  to  even  a  suspicion  of  wrong."  M  Elaine  was 
squarely  in  the  midst  of  such  things  and  not  any 
miles  off  at  all.  His  biographer  tells  us  that  one  of  his 
favorite  maxims  was,  "Nothing  is  so  weakening  as 
regret."  63  He  regretted  his  dealings  with  Fisher,  how- 
ever, and  spoke  of  them  as  "this  most  unfortunate 
transaction  of  my  life,  pecuniarily  and  otherwise."  84 
He  had  reason  to,  for  they  cost  him  the  presidency. 

IV 

AND  the  presidency  may  justly  be  regarded  as  the 
goal  of  his  existence.  There  has  been  much  argument 
about  his  own  personal  ambition.  The  biographers  do 
not  emphasize  this  element  in  him,  but  rather  insist 
that,  especially  in  later  years,  he  became  utterly  in- 
different to  political  advancement  and  so,  repeatedly, 
expressed  himself.  No  doubt  he  did  so  express  himself. 
No  doubt,  after  his  defeat  in  1884,  he  behaved  with  the 
utmost  dignity  in  avoiding  any  insistent  appeal  for 
popular  favor  and  hi  declining  to  have  his  name  tossed 
about  like  a  straw  in  the  gusts  of  partisan  debate. 
But  those  who  stress  this  attitude  too  much  forget  that 
an  imaginative  man  may  perfectly  well  combine  a  pas- 
sionate desire  for  a  thing  with  a  philosophical  sense  of 
its  worthlessness.  All  through  Elaine's  career  I  catch 
gleams  of  intense  ambition,  like  the  brief  reference  to 
the  Representatives'  Hall  in  Maine:  "That  was  the 
theatre  of  a  great  deal  of  early  pride  and  power  to  the 
undersigned.  It  nevei4  covered  the  horizon  of  my  hopes 
and  ambitions,  but  while  in  it  and  of  it  I  worked  as 
thougt  there  was  no  other  theatre  of  action  in  the 

138 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

world."  "  And  when  I  read  Mrs.  Elaine's  admirable 
sentence,  written  in  1881,  "Your  Father  said  to  me 
only  yesterday,  '  I  am  just  like  Jamie  — when  I  want  a 
thing,  I  want  it  dreadfully.' "  "  I  have  no  difficulty 
!  in  understanding  Mr.  Stanwood's  picture  of  him,  after 
|  he  had  resigned  his  secretaryship  oL  state  in  1892, 
'  shutting  himself  up   in  a  Boston  hotel,   to  follow 
with  passionate  eagerness  the  reports  of  the  Conven- 
tion where  his  chance  of  touching  the  climax  of  his 
fate  was  slipping  away  forever. 67 

For,  no  matter  what  view  one  takes  of  Elaine's  con- 
scious, personal  ambition,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  total  logic  of  his  career  bore  him  toward  the  pres- 
idency with  a  tremendous,  long,  unceasing  sweep.  He 
rose  upward  and  onward  through  the  course  of  state 
politics,  through  the  larger  world  at  Washington,  suc- 
ceeding everywhere  and  in  everything,  gaining  friends 
and  supporters  and  admirers.  It  seemed  in  1876  as 
if  the  nomination  must  be  his.  Then  the  phantom  of 
the  fatal  Fisher  stalked  in  and  thrust  him  out.  It  was 
the  same  in  1880.  When  1884  came,  the  pressure  of 
his  immense  popularity  was  too  great  to  be  resisted 
and  the  convention  was  forced  to  nominate  him.  The 
campaign  that  followed  was  one  of  the  fiercest,  the 
most  exciting,  the  most  personal  in  American  history. 
It  was  also  one  of  the  closest.  To  the  end  no  one  could 
tell  or  foretell.  The  incident  of  the  over-zealous  Rev- 
erend Burchard,  who  declared  that  his  adored  Blaine 
was  the  deadly  enemy  of  "Rum,  Romanism,  and  Re- 
bellion," may  have  affected  only  a  few  votes.  But  a 
few  in  New  York  were  enough,  so  few  that  some  con- 

139 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

tended  that  a  dishonest  count  in  a  district  here  and 
there  was  sufficient  to  change  the  result.  Yet,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  defection  of  those  who  dis- 
trusted Elaine's  financial  character,  a  dozen  Burchards 
could  hardly  have  made  a  ripple  on  the  wave  of  his 
immense  majority. 

Unfortunately  we  have  little  light  on  Elaine's  in- 
ner life  during  the  contest.  Almost  his  last  public 
words  before  the  vote  were,  "  I  go  to  my  home  to-mor- 
row, not  without  a  strong  confidence  in  the  result  of  the 
ballot,  but  with  a  heart  that  shall  not  in  the  least  de- 
gree be  troubled  by  any  verdict  that  may  be  returned 
by  the  American  people."  68  The  shall  is  fine.  But 
how  such  words  wither  before  the  vivid  humanity  of 
Mrs.  Elaine's  description:  "It  is  all  a  horror  to  me. 
I  was  absolutely  certain  of  the  election,  as  I  had  a 
right  to  be  from  Mr.  Elkins's  assertions.  Then  the  fluc- 
tuations were  so  trying  to  the  nerves.  It  is  easy  to  bear 
now,  but  the  click-click  of  the  telegraph,  the  shouting 
through  the  telephone  in  response  to  its  never-to-be- 
satisfied  demand,  and  the  unceasing  murmur  of  men's 
voices,  coming  up  through  the  night  to  my  room,  will 
never  go  out  of  my  memory  —  while  over  and  above 
all,  the  perspiration  and  chills,  into  which  the  con- 
flicting reports  constantly  threw  the  physical  part  of 
one,  body  and  soul  alike  rebelling  against  the  re- 
straints of  nature,  made  an  experience  not  to  be  volun- 
tarily recalled."  M 

There  is  nothing  to  be  said  after  that.  For  Elaine 
it  was  the  end,  though  the  end  lasted  for  nearly  ten 
years  of  lingering  and  superficially  varied  activity. 

140 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

After  the  bitterness  of  such  an  hour,  what  was  there  in 
life?  You  might  preserve  a  decent  outside,  of  courage, 
of  dignity,  of  serenity,  even  of  ardor  and  enthusiasm. 
Underneath  there  was  nothing.  You  could  nurse  your 
pet  symptoms  of  disease,  you  could  turn  an  honest 
dollar  in  the  stock  market,  you  could  trifle  afar  off 
and  with  no  indecent  coquetry  with  the  presidential 
bauble,  you  could  be  a  paltry  secretary  of  state  with 
much  credit  and  some  friction,  you  could  see  those  you 
loved  best  dying  about  you,  and,  thank  God,  you 
could  die  yourself. 

Such  was  the  great  moral  tragedy  of  James  Gil- 
lespie  Elaine.  With  pretty  much  all  the  virtues,  all 
the  graces,  all  the  gifts  of  genius,  he  will  be  remem- 
bered in  his  country's  annals  as  the  man  who  lost  the 
presidency  because  he  was  suspected  of  financial  dis- 
honor. 


VI 

GROVER  CLEVELAND 


CHRONOLOGY 

Stephen  Grover  Cleveland. 

Born,  Caldwell,  New  Jersey,  March  18,  1837. 

Clerk  in  grocery-store,  Fayetteville,  New  York, 

1851. 

Removed  to  Buffalo,  New  York,  1854. 
Admitted  to  the  bar,  May,  1859. 
Elected  Mayor  of  Buffalo,  1881. 
Elected  Governor  of  New  York,  1882. 
Elected  President  of  the  United  States,  1884. 
Married  Frances  Folsom,  June  2,  1886. 
Elected  President  of  the  United  States,  1892. 
Died,  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  June  24,  1908. 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 


VI 
GROVER  CLEVELAND 


WHAT  a  comfort  it  is  to  find  a  statesman  who  did 
not  succeed  £>y  his  tongue!  No  doubt  many  statesmen 
have  admirable  qualities  that  go  a  little  deeper;  but 
there  are  so  few  for  whom  the  tongue  does  not  open 
the  way  that  gives  the  other  qualities  a  chance!  It 
was  not  the  tongue  with  Cleveland,  at  any  rate.  What 
was  it?  Some  say,  or  used  to  say,  largely  a  curious  con- 
catenation of  favorable  circumstances.  But  this  ex- 
plains nothing,  and  a  careful  study  of  his  character 
and  life  will  make  it  appear  otherwise. 

The  astounding  rapidity  of  Cleveland's  advance  in 
the  world  does  seem  to  favor  the  theory  of  accident. 
The  son  of  a  poor  country  minister,  he  had  to  make 
his  way,  and  made  it.  He  began  to  earn  his  living  as 
a  boy  in  a  grocery-store,  in  Fayetteville,  New  York. 
Oddly  enough,  like  his  great  rival,  Elaine,  he  later  held 
a  position  in  a  blind  asylum.  Afterwards  he  found  en- 
trance into  a  lawyer's  office  and  by  immense  indus- 
try gradually  established  a  solid  practice.  He  was  dis- 
trict attorney  and  sheriff  of  Erie  County,  but  not  ex- 
ceptionally active  or  prominent  in  politics.  Then,  hi 
1881,  at  the  age  of  forty-four,  he  became  mayor  of 
Buffalo,  in  1882  governor  of  New  York,  in  1884  pres- 
ident of  the  United  States,  in  1892  president  for  a  sec- 

145 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

ond  term.  Is  it  strange  that  when  he  was  first  in  the 
White  House  he  should  have  said,  "Sometimes  I  wake 
at  night  and  rub  my  eyes  and  wonder  if  it  is  not  all  a 
dream?"  l 

How  far  was  personal  ambition  a  driving  force  in 
this  extraordinary  progress?  If  you  will  listen  to 
Cleveland's  eulogists,  you  will  think  it  was  mainly 
absent.  According  to  them  it  would  appear  that  great 
office  called  for  such  a  man  as  he  was  and  he  complied 
with  the  demand  much  against  his  good  nature.  It 
needs  but  little  knowledge  of  the  human  heart  to  find 
this  view  somewhat  exaggerated.  Men  may  distrust 
their  own  ability.  They  may  weary  of  public  cares  and 
burdens.  But  few  men  have  high  dignity  actually 
thrust  upon  them.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Cleveland 
liked  to  be  governor,  liked  to  be  president,  especially 
relished  all  his  Me  the  grandeur  of  having  filled  those 
offices. 

This  does  not  mean  that  there  was  any  untruth  in 
his  statement  that "  I  never  sought  an  office  of  any  kind 
in  my  life."  2  It  does  not  mean  that  he  would  have 
sacrificed  one  grain  of  self-respect  to  gain  any  office. 
As  dignities  came  to  him,  he  accepted  and  enjoyed  the 
honor  of  them;  but  what  they  brought  chiefly  was  duty. 
He  set  himself  earnestly,  strenuously  to  fulfil  that  duty, 
and  the  task  was  so  absorbing  that  he  hardly  perceived 
the  necessary  result  of  such  fulfilment  in  another  step 
outward  and  upward.  When  the  presidential  nomi- 
nation came  to  him  hi  1884,  he  was  occupied  with  his 
gubernatorial  duties  at  Albany.  Naturally  he  had  di- 
vined what  was  coming,  or  others  had  obligingly  divined 

146 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

it  for  him.  But  neither  the  nomination  nor  the  cam- 
paign distracted  him  for  a  moment  from  his  regular 
work.  He  stayed  in  his  office  and  let  others  do  the  talk- 
ing, or,  if  they  talked  too  loudly  around  him,  he  went 
off  for  a  day's  fishing  and  forgot  them.  The  campaign 
was  ugly,  saturated  with  abuse  and  scandal.  He  paid  no 
attention.  Tell  the  truth,  he  urged,  and  take  the  con- 
sequences. He  appeared  so  little  before  the  campaign- 
ing crowds  that  the  sight  of  a  great,  surging,  triumphant 
assembly  was  nearly  too  much  for  him.  In  an  almost 
broken  voice  he  said:  "I  never  before  realized  what  was 
expressed  in  the  phrase  'a  sea  of  faces'  —  look  at  it; 
as  beautiful  and  yet  as  terrible  as  the  waves  of  the 


ocean." 


The  honest  earnestness  of  his  attitude  through  it  all 
shows  in  nothing  better  than  in  his  way  of  receiving  the 
news  of  his  nomination.  As  he  sat  working  hi  his  office, 
firing  was  heard  outside.  "They  are  firing  a  salute, 
Governor,  over  your  nomination,"  said  General  Farns- 
worth.  "That  's  what  it  means,"  added  Colonel  Lament. 
"Do  you  think  so?"  said  the  governor  quietly.  "Well," 
he  continued,  "anyhow,  we'll  finish  up  this  work."4 
That  was  the  man.  Whatever  happens,  life  or  death, 
we'll  finish  up  this  work. 

II 

WITH  so  much  work  and  so  little  talk,  it  was  natural 
that  the  country  should  not  have  known  a  great  deal 
about  the  man  it  had  elected  president.  It  never  did  know 
him.  It  has  only  begun  to  know  him  since  his  death.  Even 
to-day  it  is  difficult  to  penetrate  beneath  the  apparent 

147 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

stolidity,  the  calm,  unshaken,  impersonal  reserve,  to  the 
warm,  human  soul.  And  we  have  no  such  charming, 
indiscreet  confidences  as  lurk  and  linger  hi  the  letter? 
of  Mrs.  Elaine.  But  there  was  a  human  soul  thera 
just  the  same. 

There  was  intelligence,  solid,  substantial,  reliable,  if 
not  broad.  Early  opportunities  of  education  there  had 
not  been.  The  fierce  necessities  of  bread  and  butter 
cut  them  off,  and  they  were  always  deeply,  perhaps 
excessively,  regretted.  There  are  some  evidences  of  des- 
ultory reading,  for  instance  a  rather  surprising  reference 
to  Sterne,5  and  an  out-of-the-way  quotation  from  "Troi- 
lus  and  Cressida."  6  But  in  the  main  large  culture  was 
not  the  foundation  of  Cleveland's  thought  or  Me. 

Nor  was  the  lack  of  cultivation  supplemented,  as  so 
often,  by  quickness  or  alertness  of  intelligence.  Some 
men  appear  learned,  and  even  are  learned,  by  seizing 
the  end  of  a  thread  here,  another  there,  and  patching  all 
together  into  a  respectable  fabric  of  wide  conversance. 
This  process  was  foreign  to  Cleveland's  nature.  He 
did  not  generalize,  did  not  move  readily  and  swiftly 
among  abstract  ideas,  did  not  spring  instantly  to  the 
far-reaching  significance  of  the  immediate.  It  is  true, 
we  have  a  most  interesting  saying  of  his,  "I  can  never 
understand  the  meaning  of  any  theory  until  I  know 
how  it  happened."  7  But  this  implied  apparently  rather 
the  lawyer's  close  and  curious  search  for  precedent  than 
the  scientist's  ample  reach  into  the  infinite  relations  of 
things. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  intelligence  was  not  swift 
or  restless,  it  was  vigorous,  thorough,  and  exact.  Once 

148 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

a  problem  was  fairly  stated,  it  had  to  be  solved,  and  it 
had  to  be  solved  rightly.  I  cannot  make  this  clearer  than 
by  quoting  a  most  discerning  account  of  Cleveland's 
methods  in  conversation,  which  were  evidently  his 
methods  in  all  intellectual  activity.  "At  first  there  was 
a  gradual  approach  to  the  question  from  one  side,  and 
then,  perhaps  after  a  little  pause,  unexpectedly  from  an- 
other. He  was  exploring,  looking  around,  feeling  his 
way,  searching  for  the  general  dimensions.  He  literally 
'went  around*  the  subject  carefully  and  cautiously,  and 
on  all  sides.  And  if  some  part  necessary  to  its  complete- 
ness was  lacking,  he  made  a  note  of  it,  and  took  it  into 
account  all  the  way  to  the  end  of  his  discourse.  When 
he  had  made  his  tour  around  the  subject,  as  could  be 
noticed  by  a  penetrating  word  here  or  a  phrase  of  dis- 
covery there,  his  work  was  almost  done,  and  with  one 
step  he  went  straight  to  the  centre  of  the  complex 
question.  And  then  he  was  done,  and  the  talk  was 
ended."  8 

A  great  deal  has  been  said  about  Cleveland's  manner  of 
writing.  It  is  interesting  to  us  because  it  is  thoroughly 
significant  of  the  man  and  of  his  intellectual  quality. 
It  is  formal,  elaborate,  almost  artificially  literary,  and 
people  are  surprised  that  a  nature  so  simple,  in  some  re- 
spects so  primitive,  should  adopt  such  conventional  ex- 
pression. They  do  not  see  that  it  is  precisely  because 
he  was  simple,  reserved,  an  actor  not  a  talker,  that  his 
effort  in  words  was  labored  and  far-fetched.  Perfect 
simplicity  and  directness  of  form  come  naturally  to  those 
to  whom  words  are  an  inborn  gift.  Those  who  deal  by 
instinct  with  deeds,  when  they  do  talk,  are  apt  to  talk 

149 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

ponderously.  Yet  when  Cleveland  put  the  hammer  of 
his  character  behind  his  words,  they  beat  themselves 
into  the  memory  of  the  nation,  and  few  presidents  have 
supplied  history  with  more  phrases  that  are  remem- 
bered. 

Cleveland's  general  intellectual  qualities  are  admi- 
rably illustrated  in  his  spiritual  and  religious  attitude. 
The  metaphysics  of  religion  had  no  attraction  for  him. 
He  did  not  care  to  discuss  speculative  theology;  ?nd 
so-called  higher  criticism,  with  its  fine-spun  analyses 
and  subtle  interpretation  of  scripture,  was  extremely 
distasteful  to  his  practical  bent.  He  had  a  certain  fine, 
large,  human  tolerance,  well  shown  in  his  excellent 
story  of  the  Old  Baptist  whom  his  Presbyterian  friends 
tried  to  get  into  their  church:  "No;  you  folks  are  Pres- 
byterians, and  if  I  go  over  to  your  church  I  could  n't 
enjoy  my  mind."  9  He  liked  to  enjoy  his  own  mind  and 
to  let  others  enjoy  theirs.  Nevertheless,  his  personal  re- 
ligion was  essentially  conservative.  What  his  father  had 
preached  and  his  mother  had  practised  was  all  he  needed. 
"The  Bible  is  good  enough  for  me,"  he  said;  "just  the 
old  book  under  which  I  was  brought  up.  I  do  not  want 
notes,  or  criticisms,  or  explanations  about  authorship 
or  origin,  or  even  cross-references.  I  do  not  need  or 
understand  them,  and  they  confuse  me."  10 

It  is  true  that,  like  other  human  beings,  he  did  not 
always  practise  as  he  preached.  There  were  irregu- 
larities in  his  earlier  life  of  a  sort  to  scandalize  his 
mother.  And  his  summer  church  attendance  was 
not  quite  what  his  father  would  have  approved.  But 
if  he  did  not  always  go  to  church,  he  rigidly  respected 

150 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

the  Sabbath.  And  he  had  all  his  life  a  fineness  of  con- 
science rather  notable  in  a  man  of  such  wide  experience  of 
the  world  and  so  practical  a  temper.  When  he  was  offered 
a  considerable  sum  for  a  magazine  article,  he  refused  to 
take  so  much  because  he  had  accepted  less  for  a  similar 
contribution.  n  Again,  he  writes  to  a  friend  that  he  has 
declined  an  offer  of  a  position  "to  which  was  attached 
a  very  large  salary,  because  I  did  not  think  I  could  do  all 
the  situation  demanded  and  make  the  project  a  suc- 
cess." "  Still  more  striking  is  the  account  of  his  remorse 
over  a  possible  misstatement  hi  connection  with  a  fishing 
adventure.  Long  after  the  incident  occurred,  he  spoke 
of  it  with  obvious  distress  and  when  told  that  with  the 
circumstances  as  they  were,  his  story  must  have  been 
exact,  he  assented  doubtfully:  "I  hope  so,  I  hope  so."11 
It  is  evident  that  the  aesthetic  element  of  religion 
would  not  have  had  much  appeal  for  Cleveland.  And 
in  purely  aesthetic  matters  he  was  even  less  responsive. 
It  is  interesting  and  curious  to  think  that  a  man  who 
had  such  a  vast  influence  and  held  such  a  prominent 
position  should  have  been  utterly  cut  off  from  emotional 
pleasures  which  mean  the  sweet  of  life  to  so  many  people. 
Of  course  this  is  not  peculiar  to  him.  Still,  few  even 
practical  men  are  more  completely  indifferent  to  the  at- 
traction of  art  and  beauty.  Of  painting,  of  music,  he 
seems  to  have  known  little  or  nothing.  He  liked  the  old 
hymns  and  had  learned  many  of.  them  by  heart.  In 
the  illness  of  his  later  years  he  read  many  novels.  But 
he  went  to  his  grave,  as  do  millions  of  others,  less  prom- 
inent, with  no  consciousness  whatever  of  what  great 
art  is  and  does  for  us. 

151 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

To  the  beauty  of  nature  he  was  much  more  sus- 
ceptible, and  Mr.  West  has  admirably  preserved  the 
account  of  one  experience  which  must  have  been  rep- 
resentative^of  hundreds.  "I  can't  find  a  word  for  it," 
he  said  quietly  . . .  after  a  flood  of  sunshine  had  burst 
through  a  light  April  shower.  "What  makes  it  so  beau- 
tiful? There  is  no  word  good  enough.  'Ravishing' 
comes  nearest,  I  think.  Where  does  it  come  from? 
Do  you  know  what  I  mean?  It  is  too  good  for  us.  Do 
you  understand  me?  It  is  something  we  don't  de- 
serve." 14 

The  dumb  but  pervading  sense  of  such  natural  beauty 
is  bound  up  with  what  was  always  one  of  the  greatest 
delights  of  Cleveland's  life,  outdoor  sport.  He  was  an 
ardent  fisherman  and  hunter.  His  little  book  of  fish- 
ing sketches  brings  one  right  close  to  him,  brings  one 
right  inside  the  garment  of  formal,  conventional  reserve 
more  than  anything  else  possibly  could.  You  seem  to  be 
spending  days  of  large,  quiet  pleasure  with  him,  in  the 
woods  and  on  the  water,  to  be  hearing  his  quaint  sto- 
ries and  shrewd  comments,  and  entering  into  feelings 
that  he  never  showed  to  congressmen  or  reporters. 
The  very  effort  and  simple  artifice  of  the  expression 
reveal  a  simple  nature  doing  its  best  to  make  refrac- 
tory words  convey  what  it  seeks  to  utter  and  cannot. 
Under  the  calm,  controlled  surface  you  divine  latent 
possibilities  of  excitement  which  could  be  aroused  by 
keen  sport  as  well  as  by  human  rivalry.  There  is  temper 
there,  there  is  depression  there  and  discouragement, 
there  is  intense  enthusiasm.  There  is  the  suggestion 
of  imaginative  range,  also,  though  it  is  instantly  checked 

152 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

by  gentle  irony.  "The  keen  delights  of  imagination 
which  should  be  the  cheering  concomitants  of  the  most 
reputable  grade  of  duck-hunting."  15 

It  is  characteristic  of  Cleveland's  conservative  temper 
that  his  passion  for  sport  was  not  modified  into  any  of 
the  later  nineteenth-century  equivalents.  It  was  sim- 
ply the  hearty,  out-of-doors  expression  of  full-blooded 
health  and  vigor.  There  is  no  sign  of  the  slightest 
scientific  curiosity  connected  with  it.  There  is  no  pre- 
tentious humanitarianism.  The  object  of  hunting  was 
killing;  not  wanton  or  wasteful,  but  plain  killing,  for 
the  excitement  to  be  extracted  from  it.  Yet  it  must 
not  for  a  minute  be  supposed  that  he  was  a  hard  or  cruel 
man.  He  was  much  the  contrary.  Lowell's  keen  vision 
detected  this  on  slight  contact:  "With  all  his  firmness 
he  has  a  very  tender  and  sympathetic  nature,  or  I  am 
much  mistaken."  li  The  tenderness  showed  in  many 
ways.  Even  as  to  animals  there  was  an  almost  exag- 
gerated sympathy,  when  they  were  not  objects  of  sport. 
He  once  worried  for  days  because  he  had  not  interfered 
to  protect  a  cat  which  some  boys  were  chasing.  17  He 
had  all  the  horror  of  death  which  is  natural  to  persons 
of  energetic  vitality. 18  He  had  the  deepest  pity  for 
suffering  and  the  pity  tended  quickly  to  take  active 
forms  of  relief. 

He  had  especially  one  of  the  surest  signs  of  sensibil- 
ity and  tenderness,  a  constant  love  and  appreciation 
of  children.  He  felt  their  sorrows.  "The  cry  of  a  child 
always  distressed  him.  It  made  him  quite  miserable 
sometimes  when  he  was  walking  through  the  village. 
He  always  wanted  to  stop  and  find  out  what  was  the 

153 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

matter."  19  Their  sports  and  spirits  amused  him  and 
he  entered  into  them  quietly  but  keenly,  as  if  he  were 
a  child  himself.  Children  understood  this,  as  they  al- 
ways do.  General  Wood,  who  knew  Cleveland  well, 
says,  "He  was  as  fond  of  children  as  was  Lincoln.  He 
understood  them,  and  they  instinctively  knew  it  and 
felt  it,  and  they  came  to  him  as  a  friend."  20 

It  is  notable  that  this  intimacy  with  children  often 
goes  with  a  rather  reserved  and  generally  unsociable 
temperament.  We  have  noticed  the  same  thing  in  the 
case  of  Henry  Adams.  It  was  strikingly  true  of  General 
Lee  as  of  Cleveland.  The  explanation  is  simple.  Chil- 
dren ask  sympathy  and  attention.  They  never  ask  you 
to  give  yourself.  To  Cleveland,  as  to  Lee,  the  conven- 
tional restraints  of  formal  society  were  irksome.  Cleve- 
land could  indeed  supply  charming  platitudes  on  social 
duty,  as  in  the  Fishing  Sketches,  "Every  individual,  as 
a  unit  in  the  scheme  of  civilized  social  life,  owes  to  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  within  such  relationship  an 
uninterrupted  contribution  to  the  fund  of  enlivening 
and  pleasurable  social  intercourse."  21  This  recalls  the 
pretty  saying  of  the  old  dramatist,  "Oh,  my  lord,  we 
are  all  born  in  our  degrees  to  make  one  another  merry."  2J 
But  Cleveland  avoided  the  obligation  when  he  could, 
hated  long  dinners  and  pompous  ceremonies,  and  on 
such  occasions  would  often  sit  perfectly  silent  and  not 
manifest  an  overpowering  interest  in  the  talkativeness 
of  others. 

He  hated  the  display  and  luxury  and  extravagance 
of  society,  also.  He  believed  that  a  nation  showed  its 
sanity  in  its  simplicity,  and  the  attacks  in  his  writings 

154 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

on  the  money  craze  of  his  contemporaries  and  their  mad 
rush  for  wealth  are  so  frequent  as  almost  to  suggest  a 
hobby.  He  practised  frugality  as  well  as  preached  it, 
cared  nothing  for  costly  clothes  or  fare  or  ornament. 
One  day,  during  Cleveland's  second  presidential  term, 
a  train  stopped  at  the  Gray  Gables  station.  "Look," 
called  the  conductor  to  the  passengers,  impersonally, 
"there's  Mrs.  Cleveland  and  Grover  on  the  platform." 
The  passengers  looked.  "Well,"  said  one  woman,  "if 
I  had  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  I  would  n't  dress 
like  that."" 

It  must  not  be  for  a  moment  supposed,  however,  that 
Cleveland's  economy  arose  from  any  taint  of  meanness. 
He  was  as  indifferent  to  the  accumulation  of  money  as 
to  the  spending  of  it.  He  tells  us  so  himself,  speaking 
of  the  sacrifice  of  several  thousand  dollars  for  an  unnec- 
essary scruple,  "But  I  don't  deserve  any  credit  for  that, 
because  money  has  never  been  a  temptation  to  me."  24 
And  others,  many  others,  bear  him  out.  Even  in  his 
early  law  practice  "he  was  always  indifferent  and  care- 
less as  to  his  fees.  His  clients  had  to  offer  him  money."  » 
And  the  failure  to  accumulate  arose  not  only  from  in- 
difference, but  from  wide  generosity.  Without  the  least 
ostentation,  he  helped  many  a  poor  and  struggling 
applicant  —  and  non-applicant  —  over  difficulties  and 
tight  places.  When  he  left  the  law,  his  partner  wrote : 
"  I  am  now  closing  up  a  case  of  Cleveland's  which  has 
been  running  on  for  years,  during  all  which  time  he  had 
paid  all  disbursements  . . .  because  the  man  was  too 
poor  to  meet  these  necessary  expenses.  And  this  is  only 
one  case  out  of  many  that  are  here  on  our  books."  26 

155 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

The  assertion  that  Cleveland  avoided  general  so- 
ciety does  not  mean  that  he  did  not  appreciate  human 
relations.  To  be  sure,  he  found  politics  rather  detrimen- 
tal to  friendship.  Where  there  is  so  much  to  give,  cas- 
ual affection  is  apt  to  look  for  what  may  be  got  and  to 
wither  when  disappointed.  Also,  such  firm  and  self- 
centred  natures  are  less  disposed  to  form  human  ties 
than  those  which  naturally  turn  to  others  for  advice  and 
comfort  and  support.  But  for  that  very  reason  the  friend- 
ships formed  are  founded  on  a  deeper  comprehension  and 
sympathy  and  are  usually  loyal  and  permanent.  In  the 
last  years  of  his  life,  Cleveland  wrote  some  touching 
words  about  his  own — perhaps  imagined — deficiencies 
in  the  matter  of  human  association  and  about  his  love 
and  longing  for  it.  "I  have  left  many  things  undone  I 
ought  to  have  done  in  the  realm  of  friendship  . . .  and 
still  it  is  in  human  nature  for  one  to  hug  the  praise  of  his 
fellows  and  the  affection  of  friends  to  his  bosom  as  his 
earned  possession." l7  Certainly  no  one  can  read  Gilder's 
charming  "Record  of  Friendship"  without  finding  in  it 
all  the  evidence  of  deep  and  genuine  feeling.  And  the 
close  intimacy  of  Cleveland  and  Joseph  Jefferson,  so 
different  in  character  and  in  their  life-interests,  yet 
each  so  finely  tempered  in  his  own  way,  is  one  of  the 
pleasant  traditions  of  American  biography. 

Cleveland's  personal  affection  went  even  deeper  in 
his  domestic  relations  than  with  his  friends.  His  mother's 
memory  and  the  depth  of  her  tenderness  were  treas- 
ured all  his  life.  When  he  was  elected  governor  of 
New  York,  he  wrote  to  his  brother,  "Do  you  know  that 
if  mother  were  alive,  I  should  feel  so  much  safer?"28 

156 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

After  McKinley's  term  had  begun,  he  said:  "I  envy 
him  to-day  only  one  thing  and  that  was  the  presence  of 
his  own  mother  at  his  inauguration.  I  ^would  have 
given  anything  in  the  world  if  my  mother  could  have 
been  at  my  inauguration."  "  All  the  glimpses  that  we 
get  of  his  own  home  life,  with  wife  and  children,  are 
charming:  simple,  devoted,  sympathetic,  undemonstra- 
tive, but  participant  of  joy  and  grief  alike. 

And  in  all  these  intimate  relations  with  those  who 
knew  him  best,  the  quiet,  shy,  reserved  Cleveland  of 
general  society  melted  and  mellowed  into  the  best  of 
company  and  the  most  responsive  of  listeners  and  talk- 
ers. "Heliad  a  real  'gift*  of  silence,"  says  one  of  his 
biographers; 80  that  is,  he  could  be  silent  in  a  way  to 
chill  impertinence  and  curiosity  and  again,  in  a  very 
different  fashion,  to  inspire  enthusiasm  and  tempt  con- 
fidence. And  then,  with  the  right  company,  he  would 
talk  himself,  would  drop  reserve  and  restraint  and  give 
out  his  hope  and  heart  with  singular  and  engaging 
frankness  and  so  simply  that  you  almost  saw  the  life 
right  through  the  severing  veil  of  speech. 

The  picture  of  Cleveland  in  these  elementary  social 
connections  would  be  quite  incomplete  without  rec- 
ognition of  his  very  attractive  and  winning  humor. 
People  who  know  him  only  as  the  heavy  and  somewhat 
solemn  official  do  not  appreciate  this.  Yet  even  in  pub- 
lic addresses  he  could  indulge  in  a  vein  of  pleasantry, 
as  when,  in  comparing  the  legal  and  medical  professions, 
he  says  that  the  defeated  client  has  the  privilege  of 
swearing  not  only  at  the  court,  but  at  his  lawyer,  but 
"the  defeated  patient,  on  the  contrary,  is  very  quiet 

157 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

indeed  and  can  only  swear  at  his  doctor  if  he  has  left 
his  profanity  in  a  phonograph  to  be  ground  out  by  his 
executor."  Il  And  the  same  tone  creeps  into  the  dig- 
nified veto  of  a  pension  bill:  "Whatever  may  be  said 
of  this  claimant's  achievements  during  his  short  mil- 
itary career,  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  accumulated 
a  great  deal  of  disability."  82  All  the  evidence  goes  to 
show  that  in  conversation  Cleveland  could  relish  a 
joke  and  make  one,  less  often  perhaps  with  pointed 
wit  than  with  those  shrewd,  quiet  turns  of  ironic 
humor  so  dear  to  the  American  heart.  The  "Fishing 
Sketches"  are  permeated  through  and  through  with 
simple  fun  of  just  this  sort,  which  at  its  best  sometimes 
recalls  the  frolic  fancy  of  Lamb,  although  it  is  a  Lamb 
with  the  slightly  cumbrous  gambol  of  an  elephant. 
"The  ways  of  fishermen  are  inexplicable,"  says  this 
august  follower  of  the  craft.  "The  best  fishermen  do 
not  attempt  it;  they  move  and  strive  in  the  atmosphere 
of  mystery  and  uncertainty,  constantly  aiming  to 
reach  results  without  a  clue,  and  through  the  cultiva- 
tion of  faculties,  non-existent  or  inoperative  in  the 
common  mind."  "  And  again,  fishermen,  "to  their 
enjoyment  and  edification,  are  permitted  by  a  prop- 
erly adjusted  mental  equipment  to  believe  what  they 
hear."  " 

in 

FROM  the  preceding  analysis  of  Cleveland's  personal 
qualities,  it  will  be  evident  that  in  some  respects 
he  was  not  adapted  to  political  success.  Few  great 
statesmen  have  made  themselves,  by  their  own  def- 

158 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

inite  action  in  behalf  of  right,  more  deliberately  un- 
popular. Cleveland  himself  was  perfectly  aware  of  this 
and  could  even  state  it  with  a  certain  grim  enjoyment. 
In  speaking  of  one  of  his  vetoes  as  governor,  he  said: 
"Before  I  was  married,  I  used  sometimes  to  talk  to 
myself  when  I  was  alone,  and  after  the  veto,  that  night, 
when  I  was  throwing  of!  my  clothes,  I  said  aloud: 
'By  to-morrow  at  this  time  I  shall  be  the  most  unpop- 
ular man  in  the  State  of  New  York.'""  He  had  little 
or  none  of  that  tact  which  enables  some  men  to  ingra- 
tiate themselves  more  in  refusing  than  others  when 
they  grant.  Shyness,  reserve,  obstinate  determination 
to  do  right  regardless  of  anybody's  feelings,  are  all  far 
from  being  passports  to  triumph  in  American  politics. 
Moreover,  Cleveland  hated  publicity  and  was  al- 
ways suspicious  and  distrustful  of  newspapers  and 
representatives  of  the  press.  He  had  no  tincture  of  the 
useful  art  of  appearing  to  tell  them  everything  and 
telling  them  nothing.  He  had  an  excellent  memory, 
and  a  paper  which  had  once  criticized  him  unjustly, 
or,  even  worse,  ridiculed  him,  was  disliked  and  avoided. 
Though  self-controlled  and  self-contained  in  all  his 
passions,  journalistic  indiscretion  was  more  likely  than 
anything  else  to  arouse  him  to  a  burst  of  temper.  Of  his 
many  snubs  to  reporters  perhaps  none  was  more  apt 
than  the  remark  to  a  young  fellow  who  was  trying  to 
elicit  comment  on  some  question  of  foreign  policy: 
"That,  sir,  is  a  matter  of  too  great  importance  to  discuss 
in  a  five-minute  interview,  now  rapidly  drawing  to  its 
close."  M  The  retort  was  shrewd,  but  not  calculated  to 
promote  affection. 

159 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

On  the  other  hand,  even  politicians  and  journalists 
could  not  fail  to  appreciate  Cleveland's  great  public 
merits.  There  is  his  honesty,  his  infinite  candor.  Said 
one  journalist,  after  an  attempt  to  get  something,  "He 
is  the  greatest  man  I  ever  met  —  and  he  would  n't 
promise  to  do  a  thing  I  wanted."  IT  Nothing  touches 
the  American  people  like  straightforward  truth-tell- 
ing. When  Cleveland's  youthful  morals  were  im- 
peached and  he  said  at  once,  "Tell  the  facts,"  he  won 
more  votes  than  any  possible  subterfuge  could  have 
gained  for  him.  Veracity  was  a  habit  with  him,  it  was 
constitutional.  It  was  so  ingrained  that,  as  a  fisher- 
man, he  could  even  afford  to  make  a  jest  of  it  and 
give  as  the  principle  of  that  fraternity,  "In  essentials 
—  truthfulness ;  in  non-essentials  —  reciprocal  lati- 
tude."88 When  it  was  a  matter  of  life,  not  fishing, 
there  was  no  question  of  jest.  His  son  once  brought 
out  the  truth  under  great  temptation  to  the  contrary, 
and  Cleveland  remarked  to  a  near  friend  that  the  boy 
"evidently  was  going  to  be  like  him;  because  untruth- 
fulness  seemed  to  be  no  temptation  whatever  to  either 
of  them."  » 

And  as  his  candor  appealed  to  the  American  nation, 
so  did  his  democratic  way  of  living  and  thinking.  He 
knew  the  common  people,  he  had  passed  all  his  early 
life  in  intimate  contact  with  them,  and  watched  them 
and  studied  them  with  insight  and  sympathy,  saying 
little,  but  seeing  much.  Lowell,  with  his  quick  dis- 
cernment, said  of  him,  "He  is  a  truly  American  type 
of  the  best  kind — a  type  very  dear  to  me,  I  confess."  *° 
He  grasped  the  large  daily  facts  of  human  nature, 

160 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

because  his  own  temperament  was  peculiarly  and  singly 
based  on  them.  He  needed  no  effort  to  enter  into  com- 
mon lives,  because  his  own  life  was  common,  in  the 
best  sense.  He  would  fish  all  day  with  an  old  farmer 
and  swap  long  stories  with  him  and  then  incidentally 
get  and  give  homely  views  about  political  questions. 
When,  as  governor,  he  was  walking  down  to  the  State 
House  at  Albany,  if  he  came  up  with  the  blind  crier  of 
the  courts,  he  would  take  his  arm  and  help  him  along 
over  the  crossings,  and  let  the  business  of  his  great 
office  wait. 41 

He  cannot  be  said  to  have  won  votes  by  pure  ora- 
tory. He  was  not  a  natural  speaker,  had  not  a  trace 
of  the  magnetism  that  carries  vast  multitudes  away  in 
a  storm  of  excitement.  At  the  same  time,  especially  hi 
later  life,  his  speeches  told.  He  prepared  them  with 
the  utmost  care  and  delivered  them  with  dignity  and 
measured  ease,  and  every  hearer  felt  that  they  had 
character  and  purpose  behind  them.  Even  his  appear- 
ance, while  never  splendid  or  imposing,  carried  the 
stamp  of  the  square,  determined  energy  which  con- 
quers the  world. 

These  things  touched  the  general  public.  But  how 
was  it  with  the  political  managers?  Cleveland  is 
generally  supposed  to  have  been  weak  here.  His  ad- 
mirers often  urge  that  all  his  success  was  gained  not 
through  the  politicians,  but  in  spite  of  them,  and  that 
he  did  not  stoop  to  or  understand  the  ordinary  methods 
by  which  the  political  game  is  played.  Their  arguments 
are  to  a  certain  extent  borne  out  by  his  own  remark, 
"This  talk  about  the  importance  of 'playing  polities' 

161 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

—  look  at  the  men  who  have  played  it.  Have  they  got 
as  far,  after  all,  as  I  have?" 42  On  the  other  hand,  he 
was  not  so  wholly  ignorant  as  some  supposed.  He 
knew  men  thoroughly,  and  such  knowledge  is  the  first 
requisite  of  political  success.  Moreover,  even  character 
will  not  make  a  man  governor  of  New  York,  without 
some  acquaintance  with  political  machinery.  And 
against  the  above  comment  of  Cleveland  we  can  set 
another,  which  may  not  contradict  but  certainly  am- 
plifies it:  "Somehow  there  seems  to  have  been  an  im- 
pression that  I  was  dealing  with  something  I  did  not 
understand;  but  these  men  little  knew  how  thoroughly 
I  had  been  trained,  and  how  I  often  laughed  in  my 
sleeve  at  their  antics." 4S 

Also,  in  political  management  as  in  everything  else, 
labor  counts.  Cleveland's  superb  physical  strength 
and  tireless  industry  enabled  him  to  attend  to  details 
which  others  are  forced  to  neglect.  He  always  knew 
what  was  going  on,  and  this  is  the  first  step  to  control- 
ling it.  He  believed  in  doing  your  own  work,  doing  it 
carefully  and  systematically,  and  leaving  nothing  to 
chance.  There  is  an  immense  secret  of  achievement 
in  the  apparently  two-edged  compliment  of  Tilden  as 
to  his  distinguished  follower:  "He  is  the  kind  of  man 
who  would  rather  do  something  badly  for  himself 
than  to  have  somebody  else  do  it  well." 44 

And  Cleveland  had  another  element  of  political  suc- 
cess. He  was  an  intense  party  man.  We  have  seen  the 
pleasant  humor  which  played  over  the  surface  of  his 
temperament.  But  it  did  not  enter  into  his  politics. 
Life  was  not  a  game  to  him,  as  it  was  to  Seward,  or 

162 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

a  dainty  work  of  art.  He  took  the  Democratic  party 
with  an  almost  appalling  seriousness.  Over  and  over 
he  reiterates  that  the  salvation  of  the  country,  if 
not  the  salvation  of  the  world,  must  be  accomplished 
by  the  Democrats.  His  elaborate  statement  of  the 
Democratic  creed  in  1891  is,  to  be  sure,  fairly  gen- 
eral;45 but  its  possibility  of  fulfilment  was,  for  him, 
completely  bound  up  with  Democratic  organization. 
"Of  all  the  wonders  that  I  have  seen  during  my  life," 
he  said,  "none  has  quite  so  impressed  me  as  the  re- 
serve power  of  the  Democratic  party,  which  seems  to 
have  the  elements  of  earthly  immortality."46  And 
within  a  few  months  of  his  death  he  gave  cordial 
assent  to  the  most  sweeping  possible  declaration  of 
party  principle:  "Whatever  your  own  party  may  do, 
it  is  always  a  mistake  to  vote  for  a  Republican."  47 

Yet,  from  what  we  have  already  seen  of  the  man, 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  he  never  sacrificed 
and  never  would  have  sacrificed  duty,  as  he  saw  it, 
to  any  party  consideration.  At  an  early  stage  in  his 
career  he  wrote  officially:  "I  believe  in  an  open  and 
sturdy  partisanship,  which  secures  the  legitimate 
advantages  of  party  supremacy;  but  parties  were 
made  for  the  people,  and  I  am  unwilling,  knowingly, 
to  give  my  assent  to  measures  purely  partisan,  which 
will  sacrifice  or  endanger  their  interests." 48  He  never 
did  give  his  assent  to  such.  When  he  was  being  con- 
sidered as  a  candidate  for  a  third  nomination,  he 
declared,  "If  I  am  ever  president  of  this  country 
again,  I  shall  be  president  of  the  whole  country,  and 
not  of  any  set  of  men  or  class  in  it."  49 

163 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

And,  however  he  may  have  disapproved  of  Repub- 
lican principles,  he  was  always  fair  and  even  friendly 
toward  Republican  individuals.  His  repeated  judg- 
ment of  McKinley  and  of  McKinley's  administra- 
tion showed  the  broadest  appreciation  of  practical 
difficulties  and  the  keenest  sympathy  with  honest 
effort. 

Further,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  fight  the  objection- 
able elements  in  his  own  party,  wherever  he  found 
them.  "We  love  him  for  the  enemies  he  has  made," 
said  General  E.  S.  Bragg  at  the  time  of  his  first  nomi- 
nation. 50  The  American  people  loved  him  for  those 
enemies  and  do  still.  But  the  wire-pulling  and  ring- 
running  politicians  in  the  Democratic  party  did  not 
love  him  and  at  times  he  seemed  more  severed 
from  them  than  from  even  the  Republicans.  Colonel 
Watterson  declares  that  "He  split  his  party  wide 
open.  The  ostensible  cause  was  the  money  issue.  But 
underlying  .this  there  was  a  deal  of  personal  embit- 
terment.  .  .  .  Through  Mr.  Cleveland  the  party  of 
Jefferson,  Jackson,  and  Tilden  was  converted  from  a 
Democratic  into  a  Populist." 61  This  is  an  exaggerated 
view.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  lack  of  political  tact,  and 
perhaps  an  increasing  fixity  in  his  own  opinions, 
fostered  by  too  great  disregard  of  criticism,  brought 
Cleveland  into  a  vast  amount  of  friction.  Speaking  of 
him  and  Harrison,  Henry  Adams  says,  in  his  epigram- 
matic fashion,  "Whatever  harm  they  might  do  their 
enemies,  was  as  nothing  when  compared  to  the  mor- 
tality they  inflicted  on  their  friends."52  There  was 
trouble  with  friends  and  enemies  both.  Cleveland's 

164 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

difficulties  with  the  Senate  are  matter  of  history  and, 
although  he  may  have  had  abstract  reason  on  his  side, 
the  results  for  his  administrative  usefulness  could  not 
but  be  harmful. 

Also,  all  these  public  conflicts  were  isolating,  pro- 
duced a  feeling  of  helplessness  and  depression,  even 
in  a  temperament  so  calm  and  solid  as  his.  In  1894 
he  wrote,  "There  never  was  a  man  in  this  high  office 
so  surrounded  with  difficulties  and  so  perplexed  and 
so  treacherously  treated  and  so  abandoned  by  those 
whose  aid  he  deserves,  as  the  present  incumbent. 
But  there  is  a  God,  arid  the  patriotism  of  the  American 
people  is  not  dead;  nor  is  all  truth  and  virtue  and  sin- 
cerity gone  out  of  the  Democratic  party."  53  The  pa- 
triotism of  the  American  people  is  not  dead  yet,  and 
the  very  isolation  which  at  the  time  seemed  to  prove 
the  president  unpractical  and  impracticable,  serves 
to-day  to  increase  his  dignity  and  to  place  him  secure 
above  all  parties  as  a  great  American. 

IV 

Bur  let  us  elucidate  a  little  more  definitely  what 
Cleveland  actually  stands  for  in  American  history; 
since  it  must  be  supposed  that  the  man  whose  sum- 
ming up  of  official  duty  gave  rise  to  the  phrase, 
"Public  office  is  a  public  trust,"  84  and  who  gave  his 
life  to  working  from  that  text,  must  have  left  some 
memorial  of  permanent  significance. 

It  may  be  recognized  at  once  that  this  memorial  is 
not  to  be  sought  mainly  in  positive,  progressive  achieve- 
ment. Cleveland  would  not,  of  course,  have  denied  the 

165 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

possibility  or  desirability  of  progress.  Some  of  his  utter- 
ances, especially  as  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth, 
have  a  radical  tone  which  sounds  like  the  advanced 
twentieth  century.  Still,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he 
initiated  great  movements  or  changes  of  any  kind. 
Even  his  most  positive  efforts,  as  with  the  tariff  and 
civil  service  reform,  like  his  splendid  private  useful- 
ness in  the  insurance  world,  were  in  the  nature  of  a  re- 
turn to  purer  and  saner  ideals,  an  endeavor  to  put  pub- 
lic business  on  the  basis  of  thrift  and  common  sense 
which  is  absolutely  necessary  to  success  in  the  con- 
duct of  private  affairs. 

For  the  man  was  essentially,  by  habit  and  tempera- 
ment, a  thorough  conservative.  It  may  seem  a  little 
surprising  to  find  such  a  type  in  the  Democratic  party, 
at  least  in  the  North.  To  understand  this,  we  must 
appreciate  the  wholesome,  admirable  truth  that  in 
our  American  system  each  of  the  two  major  parties  is 
capable  of  being  either  conservative  or  radical.  We 
usually  think  of  the  Republicans  as  conservative,  en- 
trenched in  tradition  and  custom.  Yet  the  cardinal 
principle  of  Republicanism  is  the  strength  and  vitality 
of  the  federal  government,  and,  as  the  most  far-reach- 
ing progress  and  radical  change  must  come  through 
that  government,  it  is  natural  that  radical  and  progres- 
sive elements  should  be  constantly  found  in  Republi- 
can alliance.  On  the  other  hand,  while  the  Democrats 
suggest  radicalism,  their  two  fundamental  tenets  have 
always  been  the  reduction  of  all  government  inter- 
ference to  the  lowest  terms  and  in  especial  a  jealous 
assertion  of  the  state  governments  against  the  federal. 

166 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

Under  the  American  Constitution  these  two  principles 
mean  instinctive,  persistent  conservatism. 

It  is  thus  that  we  find  Cleveland,  in  the  midst  of  so 
many  radical,  disturbing  elements,  the  incarnation  of 
conservatism,  of  a  firm,  insistent,  reiterated  negative. 
The  value  of  such  a  negative  force  in  any  popular  govern- 
ment may  be  measured  by  the  difficulty  of  maintaining 
it.  To  say  no,  is  the  ordinary  politician's  stumbling- 
block.  Even  when  he  is  forced  to  say  it,  he  mouths  it 
with  qualifying  adjectives  and  explanations,  seeking  in 
vain  to  mix  the  opposing  bitter  with  the  seducing  sweet. 
" Elaine  and  I, "  said  Garfield,  "...  have  too  much  pain 
in  the  refusals  we  have  constantly  to  make."  " 

This  was  never  the  trouble  with  Cleveland.  A  good, 
round,  sonorous  no  came  from  him  without  the  slight- 
est difficulty  and  there  was  no  disputing  and  no  re- 
voking it.  From  this  point  of  view  even  his  limitations 
were  a  help  to  him.  He  was  not  a  broad,  speculative 
political  thinker,  did  not  suffer  from  the  doubts  and 
qualifications  that  always  accompany  such  thought. 
His  most  abstract  writing,  "Presidential  Problems," 
is  perfectly  concrete,  though  the  questions  treated  in  it 
would  have  been  tempting  to  a  discursive,  imaginative 
philosopher.  "It  is  a  condition  which  confronts  us  — 
not  a  theory,"  is  perhaps  Cleveland's  best-known  say- 
ing. 5€  He  was  always  dealing  with  conditions,  dealing 
with  them  fairly,  honestly,  but  practically,  and  leaving 
theories  on  one  side.  The  strong  features  of  his  char- 
acter were  all  such  as  to  give  the  conservative,  negative 
element  full  force  and  vigor.  He  was  simple  and  direct, 
and  that  helps.  He  was  immensely  silent,  and  that 

167 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

helps.  He  had  unlimited  patience,  and  patience  is  as 
indispensable  in  conservatism  as  in  other  things.  As  he 
himself  said,  "  Certainly  the  potency  of  patience  as  a 
factor  in  all  worldly  achievement  and  progress  cannot 
be  overestimated." 57  Finally  he  had  determination 
pushed  to  a  degree  which  he  himself  was  perfectly 
ready  to  call  obstinacy,  "his  native  obstinacy,  which 
he  always  insisted  was  his  principal  virtue."  58  He 
said  on  one  occasion,  "  I  want  to  tell  you  now  that,  if 
every  other  man  in  the  country  abandons  this  issue, 
I  shall  stick  to  it."  69  He  said  it  and  he  meant  it. 

We  have  only  to  consider  the  chief  historical  events 
associated  with  Cleveland's  name  to  see  how  marked 
in  all  of  them  is  this  negative  element.  I  have  already 
said  that  it  was  largely  characteristic  of  his  tariff 
activity.  Negative,  his  effort  to  check  the  free  coin- 
age of  silver.  Negative,  his  superb  action  in  the  great 
railroad  strike.  Negative,  essentially,  even  the  most 
criticized  of  all  his  performances,  the  Venezuela  mes- 
sage to  Congress.  As  we  look  through  his  writings  and 
those  of  his  biographers,  the  thing  that  impresses  us 
most  overwhelmingly  is  veto,  veto,  veto.  No  doubt 
this  is  the  chief  function  that  all  American  constitu- 
tions leave  to  the  executive.  But  in  Cleveland's  case 
it  seems  to  have  been  exercised  with  temperamental 
readiness.  Take  his  mayoralty,  take  his  governorship, 
take  his  presidency:  always  the  veto.  His  vetoes  in 
four  years  amounted  to  "more  than  twice  the  number 
in  the  aggregate  of  all  his  predecessors,"  says  Richard- 
son. 80  And  of  course  in  no  case  was  the  motive  mere 
opposition  or  petulance  or  personal  grudge.  Every 

168 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

veto  was  thought  out  with  the  most  scrupulous  care 
and  justified  with  the  most  patient  reasoning.  The 
first  functionary  in  the  country  sat  up  night  after 
night  till  the  small  hours,  studying  why  he  should  say 
no  to  the  petty  and  insignificant  petition  of  some 
fraudulent  pensioner. 

From  one  point  of  view  there  is  infinite  pathos  in 
seeing  a  great  statesman  spend  his  soul  on  such  mi- 
nute detail  of  negation,  instead  of  on  the  unsolved 
problems  of  the  world.  The  ultimate  value  and  fruit- 
fulness  of  this  negative  attitude  appears  only  when  we 
consider  that  it  was  based  upon  the  deepest,  strongest, 
fundamental  belief  in  the  people  and  in  popular  gov- 
ernment. For  all  his  conservatism,  Cleveland  was  no 
reactionary,  no  aristocrat,  no  advocate  of  ruling  the 
masses  by  the  assumed  superior  wisdom  of  a  chosen 
few.  He  held  that  the  people  should  rule  themselves, 
that  they  could,  and  that  they  would,  if  a  free  chance 
was  given  them.  He  believed  in  American  ideals, 
American  traditions.  He  speaks  of  his  "passionate 
Americanism," 61  and  the  phrase,  coming  from  one  who 
knew  and  swayed  his  passions,  is  immensely  significant. 
And  he  believed  in  popular  government  because  he  put 
behind  it  the  whole  mass  and  solidity  of  his  belief  in 
God.  God  had  ordained  the  framing  of  the  American 
Republic.  God  sustained  it.  "A  free  people,"  he  said, 
"without  standards  of  right  beyond  what  they  saw 
or  did,  without  allegiance  to  something  unseen  above 
them  all,  would  soon  sink  below  their  own  level." 62 

It  was  just  because  he  believed  heartily  and  wholly 
in  American  popular  government  that  he  wished  to 

169 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

guard  it  as  it  was.  Let  those  who  believed  in  neither 
God  nor  man  keep  restlessly  trying  exoeriments,  over- 
turning the  old  without  any  assurance  of  the  new. 
He  had  studied  the  Constitution  as  the  Fathers  had 
left  it.  He  had  seen  it  working  and  believed  it  would 
work  still.  It  might  be  imperfect,  like  other  human 
inventions.  Would  the  new  devices  be  less  so?  The 
thing  was,  to  take  the  old  and  treat  it  honestly,  indus- 
triously, faithfully.  So  treated,  it  would  justify  itself 
in  the  future  as  it  had  done  in  the  past. 

Thus  it  was  that  as  a  superb  negative  force  acting 
for  a  great  positive  purpose  Grover  Cleveland  did  his 
work  in  the  world.  A  few  grand  phrases  of  his  own 
show  how  he  did  it  better  than  any  description  I  can 
furnish.  Speaking  of  Lincoln  and  his  many  military 
pardons,  he  said:  "Notwithstanding  all  that  might 
be  objectionable  in  these,  what  was  he  doing?  He  was 
fortifying  his  own  heart!  And  that  was  his  strength, 
his  own  heart;  that  is  a  man's  strength."  6S  Fortify- 
ing his  own  heart!  Again,  there  is  the  splendid  sentence 
about  Secretary  Carlisle:  "We  are  just  right  for  each 
other;  he  knows  all  I  ought  to  know,  and  I  can  bear 
all  we  have  to  bear."6*  Could  a  man  say  it  more 
humbly  and  simply,  "I  can  bear  all  I  have  to  bear"? 
Finally,  there  are  almost  the  last  words  he  ever  ut- 
tered, and  what  finer  last  words  could  any  human 
being  utter?  "  I  have  tried  so  hard  to  do  right."  " 

A  four-square,  firm,  solid,  magnificent  Titan,  who 
could  speak  the  everlasting  no,  so  rare  and  so  essen- 
tial in  democracy.  We  still  await  the  genius  even 
greater  than  he,  who  can  speak  the  everlasting  yes. 

170 


VII 

HENRY  JAMES 


- 


CHRONOLOGY 

Henry  James. 

Born,  New  York  City,  April  15,  1843. 

Educated  in  France  and  Switzerland  and  at 

Harvard  Law  School. 
From  1869  lived  mainly  in  England. 
Roderick  Hudson  published,  1875. 
Daisy  Miller  published,  1878. 
The  Portrait  of  a  Lady  published,  1881. 
What  Maisie  Knew  published,  1897. 
The  Ambassadors  published,  1903. 
The  Golden  Bowl  published,  1904. 
The  American  Scene  published,  1907. 
A  Small  Boy  and  Others  published,  1913. 
Became  British  subject,  July  26,  1915. 
Died,  London,  February  28,  1916. 


Copyright  photograph  by  Emery  Walker,  Limited 
HENRY  JAMES 
By  J.  S.  Sargent,  R.A. 


VII 
HENRY  JAMES 


HE  was  a  man  whose  whole  life  was  in  art,  and  to  whom 
life  and  art  were  inextricably  one.  He  had  no  wife,  he 
had  no  children,  he  had  no  country;  for  his  flitting  and 
vagrant  cosmopolitan  youth  uprooted  him  from  Amer- 
ica, and/al  though  the  Great  War  impelled  him  at  last 
to  declare  himself  an  English  citizen,  he  had  too  much 
the  habit  of  the  wide  world  to  become  definitely  identi- 
fied with  any  particular  nation.  He  lived  and  thought 
and  felt  to  write  great  novels,  and  he  wrote  them, 
novels  of  an  impossible  subtlety  and  complexity,  yet 
too  beautiful  and  too  original  for  men  to  let  them  die. 
Of  course  all  his  art  was  based  on  life.  He  repeats 
and  reiterates  this.  From  an  almost  abnormally  early 
age  he  began  to  study  the  faces  and  the  hearts  about 
him,  to  make  notes,  to  register  impressions,  to  accumu- 
late material  which  might,  somehow  or  other,  some- 
time or  other,  serve  his  great  and  never-forgotten 
purpose.  He  was  absolutely  sincere  in  this.  One  of 
the  great  charms  of  his  character  in  every  aspect  is 
sincerity  and  it  is  as  evident  in  his  art  as  in  his  daily 
living.  He  wanted  truth  and  nothing  else,  to  grasp  it 
patiently  and  render  it  faithfully.  "The  novelist  is  a 
particular  window,  absolutely,"  he  says, —  "and  of 
worth  in  so  far  as  he  is  one."  l  And  again,  "I  may 

173 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

therefore  venture  to  say  that  the  air  of  reality  .  .  . 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  supreme  virtue  of  a  novel."  * 
And  yet  again,  more  personally,  "For  myself  I  live, 
live  intensely  and  am  fed  by  life,  and  my  value,  what- 
ever it  be,  is  in  my  own  kind  of  expression  of  that."  * 

He  was  always  an  acute,  minute,  tireless  observer. 
He  observed  the  external  world  constantly,  and, 
though  he  was  too  busy  with  humanity  to  indulge 
often  in  long  natural  descriptions,  he  used  delicate, 
fleeting  touches  to  set  human  passion  in  just  the  back- 
ground that  will  make  it  most  impressive  and  most 
enthralling.  He  observed  the  outward  frame  of  man 
with  endless  patient  care  and  few  have  been  more 
cunning  in  teasing  it  to  yield  its  secrets.  Above  all,  he 
observed  the  soul  with  curiosity  and  comprehension 
and  even  with  tender  sympathy,  with  awe  and  due, 
modest  sense  of  the  groping  incompetence  of  the  wisest, 
and  perhaps  he  might  have  summed  up  his  observation 
in  the  simple  words  of  one  of  his  characters,  "Every- 
thing's terrible,  cara  —  in  the  heart  of  man." 4 

Yet,  for  all  this  constant  and  searching  observation, 
as  one  studies  James,  one  gets  an  overwhelming  sense 
that  to  him  life  was  chiefly  interesting,  not  in  itself, 
but  as  matter  for  art.  The  crowding,  shifting,  shud- 
dering turmoil  of  human  existence  was  stuff  to  make 
novels  of,  or  it  was  nothing.  "All  art  is  expression," 
he  says,  "  and  is  thereby  vividness." 6  But  to  him  the 
expression  was  more  than  the  thing  expressed.  Fact 
was  crude,  cumbrous,  intrusive,  perplexing.  "More 
distinct  and  more  numerous  than  I  mostly  like  facts. . . . 
Nine  tenths  of  the  artist's  interest  in  them  is  that  of 

174 


HENRY  JAMES 

what  he  shall  add  to  them  and  how  he  shall  turn 
them."6  Of  his  early  youth,  he  tells  us,  "My  face 
was  turned  from  the  first  to  the  idea  of  representa- 
tion —  that  of  the  gain  of  charm,  interest,  mystery, 
dignity,  distinction,  gain  of  importance  in  fine,  on  the 
part  of  the  represented  thing  (over  the  thing  of  acci- 
dent, of  mere  actuality,  still  unappropriated)."  7 

His  object  was  always  to  make  an  exquisite,  perfect 
work  of  art,  and  life  must  be  fitted,  moulded,  trans- 
formed into  a  flawless  achievement  of  ideal  beauty; 
not  the  shallow  beauty  which  eschews  superficial 
ugliness,  but  the  larger  harmony  which  draws  all 
threads  and  strands  together  into  the  final  triumph 
of  workmanship.  Considerations  extraneous  to  art, 
so-called  moral  aims  and  purposes,  were  to  be  discarded 
as  merely  distracting  and  inappropriate.  It  is  true 
that  few  men  ever  lived  with  a  finer  or  more  delicate 
moral  instinct,  true  also  that  moral  motives  and  subtle 
questions  of  conduct  often  supplied  the  richest  field 
for  artistic  disquisition.  But  again,  these  were  only 
the  material,  interesting  and  valuable  as  furnishing 
stuff  for  the  absorbing  artistic  passion  to  develop  all 
its  resources  of  cunning  and  cleverness.  To  teach 
lessons,  to  make  the  world  better,  this  was  not  the 
artist's  business,  nor  even  was  he  bound  to  consider 
whether  he  might  make  it  worse.  Things  beautiful 
ought  not  to  make  it  worse,  at  any  rate, 

Not  only  did  the  intense  preoccupation  with  artistic 
excellence  shut  out  moral  considerations;  it  even  dis- 
tracted thought  from  the  vast  variety  and  richness  of 
life  in  general.  It  seems  as  if  James,  through  all  his 

173 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

long  volumes,  worked  with  bare  soul  and  neglected 
the  casual  garb  of  circumstance,  the  outer  trapping  of 
profession  and  vocation,  which  differentiates  souls  to 
the  eye  of  the  more  superficial  observer.  Balzac  in  his 
way,  Trollope  in  his,  produced  a  wide  range  of  types, 
doctors,  lawyers,  preachers,  workers  in  a  dozen  varied 
lines  of  human  activity.  There  are  few  of  these  in 
James,  and  they  appear  only  at  moments,  for  some 
fleeting  agency  in  the  dramatic  action.  Generally 
speaking,  also,  he  is  confined  to  a  limited  social  class, 
does  not  depict  or  care  for  the  great  ordinary  herd 
which  makes  up  the  substance  of  humanity.  I  do  not 
know  of  any  more  naive  confession  of  such  spiritual 
exclusiveness  than  the  sentence  in  the  preface  to  the 
revised  edition  of  "The  Princess  Casamassima": 
"We  care,  our  curiosity  and  our  sympathy  care,  com- 
paratively little  for  what  happens  to  the  stupid,  the 
coarse,  and  the  blind;  care  for  it,  and  for  the  effects  of 
it,  at  the  most  as  helping  to  precipitate  what  happens 
to  the  more  deeply  wondering,  to  the  really  senti- 
ent." 8  Yet  the  stupid,  the  coarse,  and  the  blind  make 
up  the  bulk  of  the  world.  Even  if  we  presume  to  set 
ourselves  above  them,  can  we  disregard  them  so  com- 
pletely? 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  detachment  of  Henry 
James  from  the  crude  facts  of  life  was  much  fostered 
by  his  early  and  constant  internationalism,  his  imper- 
sonal separation  from  all  countries  as  such,  not  except- 
ing his  native  America.  One  of  his  most  ardent  ad- 
mirers declares  that  his  chief  mission  was  to  civilize 
the  United  States.  If  so,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  he  did 

176 


HENRY  JAMES 

not  greatly  fulfil  it.  At  any  rate,  America  was  a  puzzle 
to  him  in  earlier  days,  so  far  as  he  gave  his  thoughts  to 
it  at  all;  and  when  he  came  to  study  it  in  his  old  age, 
the  puzzle  was  not  diminished  for  him  and  certainly 
not  for  his  readers.  All  the  intense,  crowding,  sweat- 
ing, grinding  human  complexity,  which  throbs  from 
Boston  to  San  Francisco,  was  mainly  lost  on  him.  It 
terrified  him,  dismayed  him,  was  "stupid,  coarse, 
blind,"  above  all  was  too  rough  and  violent  to  be  fitted 
into  nice,  gauzy,  shimmering  webs  of  artistic  achieve- 
ment. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  mighty  predominance 
of  the  artistic  attitude  in  James's  temperament  is  that, 
keen  as  his  powers  of  observing  were,  he  was  com- 
paratively indifferent  to  fact  as  a  matter  of  record, 
had  not  at  least  that  sense  of  its  sacredness  which  is 
inherent  in  the  born  historian.  When  he  read  the 
novels  of  his  friends,  he  was  not  so  much  interested  in 
them  as  they  stood,  but  was  busy  always  with  the 
thought  of  rewriting  them,  making  them  over  as  they 
should  have  been  hi  his  artistic  conception.  His  own 
past  work  he  was  not  content  to  accept  as  a  record  of 
his  own  past  self,  to  leave  it  to  others  as  such  a  record; 
but  in  his  old  age  he  revised  and  altered  with  the  most 
singular  assiduity,  producing,  after  all,  a  result,  that 

was  truly  characteristic  neither  of  his  age  nor  of  his 
youth.  Matthew  Arnold  said,  when  reprinting  some 
early  writings,  "Exactly  as  they  stand,  I  should  not 
have  written  them  now,  but  perhaps  they  are  none  the 
worse  on  that  account." 9  This  was  far  from  the  atti- 
tude of  James.  Most  curious  of  all,  in  publishing 

177 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

letters  of  his  brother,  he  actually  altered  the  text, 
alleging  that  what  he  saw  fit  to  substitute  was  more 
characteristic  than  what  his  brother  actually  wrote.  10 
And  I  do  not  know  how  the  artist's  claim  to  dominate 
crude  fact  can  go  farther  than  that. 

So,  although  we  must  recognize  that  life  and  the 
study  of  life  form  the  undeniable  basis  of  James's,  as 
of  all  other  art,  we  constantly  feel  that  with  him  the 
artistic  instinct  is  so  engrossing,  so  involving,  that 
life  is  absorbed  and  smothered  by  it.  There  is  analy- 
sis, endless  analysis,  inexhaustible  analysis,  reflec- 
tion, dissection,  connection,  till  a  trifle  seems  drawn 
out  to  the  end  of  the  world.  What  other  human  being 
has  more  appreciated  "the  quite  incalculable  tendency 
of  a  mere  grain  of  subject-matter  to  expand  and  de- 
velop and  cover  the  ground  when  conditions  happen  to 
favor  it"?11  Nothing  is  left  to  stand  out  alone  in 
vivid  isolation  and  compelling  brevity.  The  slightest 
motive  is  traced  back  into  its  roots  and  finest  fibres, 
defined  and  refined,  until  it  becomes  at  once  monstrous 
and  impalpable.  The  method  is  so  subtle  and  elaborate 
that  the  trivial  is  made  important  by  intense  minute- 
ness in  the  study  of  it  and  the  very  same  minuteness 
makes  the  important  trivial.  Naturally  this  complica- 
tion is  least  intrusive  in  the  admirable  short  storiefs, 
and  it  took  years  to  develop  from  the  comparative 
clarity  of  "Roderick  Hudson"  to  the  extraordinary 
depths  of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  and  "The  Golden 
Bowl."  But  it  is  the  mark  of  James's  work  every- 
where and  of  his  mind.  He  reveled  in  "shades"  and 
again  and  again  he  enlarges  on  them.  He  reproaches 

178 


HENRY  JAMES 

Bourget  with  the  "love  of  intellectual  daylight,** 
which  "is  an  injury  to  the  patches  of  ambiguity  and 
the  abysses  of  shadow  which  really  are  the  clothing  — 
or  much  of  it  —  of  the  effects  that  constitute  the  mate- 
rial of  our  trade."  12  His  own  characters  grope  in  am- 
biguity and  are  garmented  in  shadow.  He  loved  ghost 
stories;  but  all  his  work  is  one  great  ghost  story,  with 
the  uneasy  thrill,  the  teasing  intensity  of  vagueness  — 
and  the  charm. 

And  here  it  must  be  insisted  that  never,  never  does 
James's  artistic  passion  degenerate  into  a  mere  mysti- 
fication of  words.  He  is  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
tendency  to  disguise  emptiness  under  phraseology 
which  is  the  plague  of  Browning.  On  the  contrary, 
words  fail  him,  will  not  serve  him,  in  the  long,  far  pur- 
suit of  fault  subtleties  of  distinction  for  which  there 
are  no  words.  He  strains  words,  forces  them,  loads 
them  with  content  past  what  their  frail  natures  will 
endure,  and  then  still  there  is  something  beyond  them 
and  him,  shimmering,  impalpable,  which  he  strives  to 
feel  and  to  make  his  reader  feel,  and  cannot.  The  mere 
verbalist  in  literature  seeks  to  make  nothing  real,  but 
James's  process  is  rather  to  refine  away  reality  to 
nothing. 

And  that  which  should  give  substance  and  structure 
to  this  gelatinous  mass  of  analysis,  the  secret  of  com- 
position, simply  betrays  this  passionate  and  consci- 
entious artist  still  further.  He  has  elaborate  principles 
and  theories  of  order,  of  balance,  of  design;  but  they 
are  too  elaborate  and  serve  rather  to  increase  the  com- 
plication than  to  clarify  it.  He  himself  was  fond  of 

179 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

insisting  upon  his  dramatic  instinct,  maintained  that 
he  saw  life  in  scenes  and  developed  his  stories  largely 
upon  a  scenic  method.  Yet  the  dramatic  theory,  like 
the  analytic,  was  excessive  in  its  nature  and  rather 
deprived  his  work  of  sustained  interest  than  informed 
it  with  breathing  life.  His  plays,  like  his  novels,  are 
fascinatingly  brilliant  in  detail:  like  the  novels,  they 
involve  the  reader  in  a  labyrinth  of  shades  from  which 
there  is  no  possible  extrication.  "  It  is  art  that  makes 
life,"  he  said;  1S  and  while  there  may  be  a  sense  in 
which  this  is  profoundly  true  for  all  of  us,  life  punished 
him  by  setting  his  great  and  original  work  apart  from 
the  thought  of  most  persons  whose  real  business  is  to 
live. 

For  there  was  never  a  more  curious  case  of  the 
intense,  unselfish  passion  for  art  pushed  so  far  as  really 
to  injure  itself,  to  obscure  itself  by  obscuring  the 
material  on  which  it  works.  To  refine,  to  distinguish, 
to  conjure  up  problems  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  solving 
them  —  these  are  different  tastes  from  the  passion  for 
life  as  such.  "You  see  what  a  mistake  you'd  make 
to  see  abysses  of  subtlety  in  my  having  been  merely 
natural,"  says  one  of  James's  own  characters. 14  She 
might  have  said  it  to  her  creator.  "I  love  life — in  art, 
though  I  hate  it  anywhere  else,"  says  another. 15  And 
it  would  not  be  fair  to  say  this  of  her  creator  unrestrict- 
edly, but  there  would  be  a  certain  point  in  it.  Far 
more  significant  and  suggestive,  in  fact  of  a  singular 
weight  and  significance  for  James's  whole  work,  is  his 
cruel  phrase  about  himself:  "And  I  find  our  art,  all 
the  while,  more  difficult  of  practice,  and  want,  with 

180 


HENRY  JAMES 

that,  to  do  it  in  a  more  and  more  difficult  way;  it  being 
really,  at  bottom,  only  difficulty  that  interests  me. 
Which  is  a  most  accursed  way  to  be  constituted."  16 

ii 

DID  the  man,  then,  you  ask,  have  no  life  of  his  own, 
aside  from  his  absorbing  preoccupation  with  art?  It  is 
surprising  how  little,  as  far  as  the  records  that  we  have 
inform  us.  No  doubt  these  records  are  limited.  The 
two  volumes  of  delightful  letters,  recently  published, 
belong  to  the  writer's  mature  and  later  tife  and  nat- 
urally show  more  of  reflection  than  passion.  The  three 
volumes  of  autobiography  also  were  written  in  old  age, 
and  in  such  a  temperament  it  was  inevitable  that 
thoughts  should  be  more  remembered  than  feelings. 
Yet  even  so  in  a  history  of  boyhood  one  would  expect 
some  outburst  of  hearty  and  violent  experience,  and 
there  is  none,  none:  just  an  endless  chain  of  subtle 
analyses  of  petty  facts,  the  vast  dissection  of  "a 
case"  like  "the  cases"  of  the  novels,  in  which  all 
petulant,  vivid  assertion  of  personality  is  drowned, 
absorbed,  in  shades,  refinements,  complications,  con- 
nections, without  stint  or  limit..  There  is  at  times  the 
vague  intimation  of  longing  to  live,  of  regret  for  not 
having  lived.  Surely  there  is  something  personal  to  the 
author  in  the  words  of  Strether  in  "The  Ambassa- 
dors": "Live  all  you  can;  it's  a  mistake  not  to. ...  I 
was  either,  at  the  right  time,  too  stupid  or  too  intel- 
ligent to  have  it  [the  illusion  of  freedom],  and  now  I'm 
a  case  of  reaction  against  the  mistake."  17  Further, 
there  is  the  insistence  that  the  artist  must  live  to  ac- 

181 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

cumulate  his  stock  in  trade:  "We  must  know,  as  much 
as  possible,  in  our  beautiful  art,  yours  and  mine,  what 
we  are  talking  about  —  and  the  only  way  to  know  is  to 
have  lived  and  loved  and  cursed  and  floundered  and 
enjoyed  and  suffered.  I  think  I  don't  regret  a  single 
'excess*  of  my  responsive  youth  —  I  only  regret  in  my 
chilled  age,  certain  occasions  and  possibilities  I  did  n't 
embrace."  18  And  this  does  sound  like  the  thrill  of 
human  existence.  But  I  am  inclined  to  set  against  it 
the  words  to  Howells,  "such  fine  primitive  passions 
lose  themselves  for  me  in  the  act  of  contemplation,  or 
at  any  rate  in  the  act  of  reproduction."  19  Since  the 
weight  of  evidence  goes  to  show  that  for  this  intensely 
concentrated  spirit,  in  youth  as  well  as  in  age,  contem- 
plation, profound  inward  absorption  was  the  essence 
of  life,  and  I  find  endless  significance  in  the  revealing 
phrase  of  William  James  as  to  his  younger  brother, 
when  scarcely  out  of  boyhood,  "Never  did  I  see  a  so- 
much  uninterested  creature  in  the  affairs  of  those 
about  him."  *° 

Let  us  consider  him  in  relation  to  the  common  con- 
cerns of  men  and  see  how  much  alive  he  was.  Sport, 
athletics,  exercise?  None  whatever,  even  in  the 
sporting  years.  Though  he  was  of  a  nervous,  anxious 
temperament,  nothing  in  his  physique  would  seem  to 
have  cut  him  off  from  bodily  activity.  But  no  aspect 
of  it  appears  to  have  interested  him,  and  none  enters 
into  his  novels. 

Money,  business?  He  was  frugal  and  self-controlled 
in  his  own  expenditure,  wisely  liberal  as  regards  others. 
He  would  have  liked  to  make  money  from  his  work  for 

182 


HENRY  JAMES 

a  little  more  amplitude  of  living.  But  money  as  an  ob- 
ject in  life  he  abhorred,  and  the  business  man,  as  a 
type,  including  in  his  fancy  most  of  his  American  fel- 
low-citizens, was  as  monotonous  as  he  was  detestable. 

Even  books,  reading,  were  of  minor  importance,  ex- 
cept those  that  bore  directly  upon  his  own  pursuit.  He 
does  indeed  say  that  "reading  tends  to  take  for  me  the 
place  of  experience,"21  and  he  at  times  expresses  en- 
thusiasm for  it.  Beyond  doubt,  he  was  intimately  fa- 
miliar with  the  works  of  modern  novelists.  But  the  great 
writers  of  the  past,  even  the  imaginative  writers,  do  not 
figure  largely  in  his  life. 

Nor  does  it  seem  that  he  thought  widely  or  cu- 
riously. His  father  was  a  subtle  metaphysician,  his 
brother  an  active  and  creative  one.  Henry  watched 
their  lucubrations  rather  helplessly  and  very  indiffer- 
ently. Science  interested  him  no  more  than  meta- 
physics. The  great  physical  discoveries  of  the  age  he 
lived  in  left  him  without  enthusiasm.  On  all  these  per- 
sonal points  the  evidence  of  the  novels  must,  of  course, 
be  used  with  caution.  But  the  utter  absence  of  broad 
intellectual  movement  in  them  only  supports  the  tes- 
timony of  the  letters  and  autobiographies.  It  is  true 
that  this  concrete  attitude  toward  life,  coupled  with 
the  tendency  to  dissolve  the  spirit  in  endless  shades  and 
complications,  produced  a  singular  respect  and  awe 
in  face  of  the  individual  soul  and  its  independent  exist- 
ence. This  is  what  James's  secretary,  Miss  Bosanquet, 
means,  when  she  calls  his  novels  "a  sustained  and 
passionate  plea  for  the  fullest  freedom  of  the  individ- 
ual development  that  he  saw  continually  imperiled  by 

183 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

barbarian  stupidity."  "  But  if  he  respected  the  soul, 
he  did  not  care  to  philosophize  about  it.  Even  as  to  his 
own  art,  which  he  discusses  so  often  and  so  acutely,  the 
discussion  is  more  apt  to  be  concerned  with  the  con- 
crete than  with  philosophical  aspects.  "Thank  God," 
he  says,  "I've  no  opinions.  ...  I'm  more  and  more 
only  aware  of  things  as  a  more  or  less  mad  panorama, 
phantasmagoria  and  dime  museum."  23 

This  comment  was,  indeed,  made  in  regard  to 
politics,  although  its  significance  is  far  more  than  po- 
litical. As  to  public  affairs,  James's  indifference,  until 
his  very  last  years,  was  mainly  sovereign.  Here  his  in- 
ternationalism appears  as  both  cause  and  effect.  A  man 
who  has  no  country  is  not  likely  to  be  intensely  patriotic. 
A  man  who  cares  little  for  the  history  of  the  past  is 
not  likely  to  be  much  aroused  over  the  social  and  po- 
litical movements  of  the  present.  "  I  fear  I  am  too  lost 
in  the  mere  spectacle  for  any  decent  morality,"  he 
says. 24  Even  the  spectacle  interested  him  more  as  em- 
bodied in  individuals  than  as  affecting  great  masses 
of  men. 

With  religion  it  was  much  as  with  other  abstract 
motives.  James  himself  confesses  that  he  had  little 
contact  with  practical  religion  in  his  youth,  and  it  is 
obvious  that  he  had  little  interest  in  it  in  age.  His 
spiritual  attitude  is  perhaps  as  well  summed  up  in  the 
following  passage  as  anywhere.  "I  don't  know  why  we 
live  —  the  gift  of  life  comes  to  us  from  I  don't  know 
what  source  or  for  what  purpose;  but  I  believe  we  can 
go  on  living  for  the  reason  that  (always  of  course  up  to 
a  certain  point)  life  is  the  most  valuable  thing  we  know 

184 


HENRY  JAMES 

anything  about."  *5  Of  prayer  he  says,  "I  don't  pray 
in  general,  and  don't  understand  it."  "  Of  a  future  life 
be  says,  "It  takes  one  whole  life — for  some  persons,  at 
least  dontje  suis — to  learn  how  to  live  at  all;  which  is 
absurd  if  there  is  not  to  be  another  in  which  to  appl>  the 
lesson." J7  Of  Balzac,  whom  he  so  greatly  admired,  he 
says:  "His  sincere,  personal  beliefs  may  be  reduced  to 
a  very  compact  formula;  he  believed  that  it  was  possi- 
ble to  write  magnificent  novels,  and  that  he  was  the 
man  to  do  it."28  Again,  "Of  what  is  to  be  properly 
called  religious  feeling  we  do  not  remember  a  suggestion 
in  all  his  many  pages."19  I  do  not  know  why  these 
words  cannot  be  aptly  applied  to  Henry  James. 

We  may  indeed  appreciate  keenly  the  lack  in  others 
of  what  we  lack  ourselves.  In  "The  American  Scene" 
James  expresses  with  the  utmost  vigor  the  religious  de- 
ficiencies of  his  countrymen:  "The  field  of  American 
life  is  as  bare  of  the  Church  as  a  billiard  table  of  a 
centre-piece;  a  truth  that  the  myriad  little  structures 
'attended*  on  Sundays  and  on  the  'off'  evenings  of 
their  'sociables'  proclaim  as  with  the  audible  sound  of 
the  roaring  of  a  million  mice." 30  But  the  complaint 
here  is  rather  aesthetic  than  devotional,  and  the 
aesthetic  side  of  religion  was  what  touched  James  most. 
Yet  it  is  extremely  curious  to  note  that  even  his  aesthetic 
enjoyments  were  dwarfed  and  dulled  by  the  absorbing 
passion  of  creative  analysis.  Again,  speaking  of  Balzac, 
he  remarks  his  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  the 
world  and  explains  it  by  saying  that  "Balzac  was  as 
little  as  possible  of  a  poet."31  And  as  before  one  feels 
that  James  was  as  little  as  possible  of  a  poet  also.  Ex- 

185 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

ternal  nature,  when  touched  at  all  in  his  novels  and  in 
his  letters,  is  touched,  like  everything  else,  with  ex- 
treme and  fine  imaginative  delicacy.  But  there  is 
rarely  any  indication  of  rapture  about  it.  In  art  he  was 
familiar  with  great  painting  and  at  times  shows  a 
deep  interest  in  it.  He  adored  Italy  for  its  artistic 
richness,  for  its  depth  of  memory,  and  for  its  melan- 
choly  associative  beauty.  But  outside  of  painting  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  cared  much  for  the  simply  beau- 
tiful. His  pleasure  in  poetry  was  limited.  He  never 
wrote  it  and  seldom  read  it,  unless  certain  French 
writers.  Music  was  a  sealed  world  to  him. 

It  is  when  we  come  to  human  relations  that  James 
as  a  man  really  begins  to  seem  alive.  To  be  sure,  like 
most  intellectual  workers,  he  lived  much  in  solitude 
and  cherished  it,  sought  again  and  again  to  find  some 
remote  corner  of  the  world  where  he  could  order  and 
develop  his  crowding  visions  without  the  bustling  in- 
trusion of  critics  or  flatterers  or  even  friends.  Yet  in 
the  main  he  enjoyed  people,  enjoyed  frequenting  so- 
ciety and  dining  out,  haunting  the  thick  throng  for  the 
inspiration  and  stimulus  it  gave  his  curious  spirit.  He 
sighs  in  age  over  the  social  ideal  of  his  youth:  "The 
waltz-like,  rhythmic  rotation  from  great  country- 
house  to  great  country-house,  to  the  sound  of  perpet- 
ual music  and  the  acclamation  of  the  'house-parties' 
that  gather  to  await  you." 32  His  conversation  was  de- 
lightful, full  of  wit,  color,  suggestion,  a  trifle  moderate 
and  elaborate,  like  his  writing,  but  rich  with  succu- 
lence and  charm.  "When  he  could  not  get  the  very 
word  or  adjective  he  wanted,  it  was  most  amusing  to 

186 


HENRY  JAMES 

see  him  with  one  hand  in  the  air,  till  he  found  it,  when 
he  flashed  his  hand  down  into  the  palm  of  the  other  and 
brought  with  a  triumphant  look  the  word  he  wanted, 
the  exact  word." 33  And  his  talk,  like  his  books,  and 
like  the  whole  man  himself,  was  always  sincere:  ear- 
nest, scrupulous,  and  winning  in  its  sincerity.  The  no- 
ble, thoughtful,  kindly  face  alone  was  enough  to  make 
a  friend  of  you. 

How  I  should  like  to  get  some  glimpse  of  Henry 
James  in  love !  But  this  side  of  his  life  is  completely 
hidden  from  us.  He  makes  no  allusion  to  it  in  the  auto- 
biography and  there  is  no  hint  of  it  in  his  letters.  Yet 
his  novels  are  saturated  with  love,  contain,  in  fact, 
little  or  nothing  else,  though  it  is  love  quintessenced 
and  alembicated  till  it  hardly  knows  itself.  One  would 
suppose  that  there  was  plenty  of  it  in  his  life.  And  his 
love-letters  would  have  been  one  of  the  curiosities  of  lit- 
erature. Fancy  the  subtleties,  the  spiritual  doublings, 
the  harassing  doubts  and  questions  and  qualifications ! 
Yet  this  may  be  all  wrong,  and  actual,  absorbing  love 
might  have  simplified  and  clarified  his  soul  beyond  any- 
thing else  on  earth.  Who  can  say?  Unless  some  woman 
still  lives  who  has  some  of  those  letters.  All  that  comes 
to  us  is  the  lovely,  searching,  pathetic  suggestion  in  six 
words,  "the  starved  romance  of  my  life."34 

What  we  do  know  and  actually  see  and  hear  is  the 
depth  of  his  tenderness  and  devotion  to  his  family  and 
friends,  though  even  this  warm  and  rushing  stream  does 
at  times  risk  extinction  in  the  huge  quagmire  of  his 
haunting  analysis.  Hear  him  enlarge  on  the  word 
"  liking,"  and  wonder  at  him :  "The  process  represented 

187 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

by  that  word  was  for  each  of  us,  I  think,  a  process  so 
involved  with  other  operations  of  the  spirit,  so  beau- 
tifully complicated  and  deformed  by  them,  that  our 
results  in  this  sort  doubtless  eventually  lost  themselves 
in  the  labyrinth  of  our  reasons." 86  And  well  they 
might ;  but  fortunately  they  did  n't.  I  know  no  letters 
more  filled  with  a  penetrating,  involving  affection. 
This  love,  he  admits,  counts  for  more  in  the  world  than 
even  art,  though  he  admits  it  grudgingly :  "  You  are  pre- 
cious to  literature — but  she  is  precious  to  the  affections, 
which  are  larger,  yet  in  a  still  worse  way." 36  When 
those  he  loves  are  absent,  he  longs  for  them  with  a  hun- 
gry longing  which  nothing  else  can  satisfy,  longs  for 
news  of  them,  longs  for  words  of  solicitude  and  thoughts 
of  tenderness.  In  spite  of  his  brother's  youthful  charge 
of  lack  of  interest,  he  enters  into  their  joys  and  triumphs. 
He  enters  into  their  griefs  and  sufferings  also,  and  with 
a  comprehension  and  sweetness  and  tact  of  sympathy 
which  must  have  been  infinitely  helpful.  I  cannot  omit 
the  earnest,  frank,  wise,  noble  words  which  he  ad- 
dressed to  one  he  loved,  in  a  great  sorrow.  Nothing 
marks  more  the  real  depth  of  humanity  hidden  in  him 
under  the  apparently  indifferent  surface:  "Only  sit 
tight  yourself  and  go  through  the  movements  of  life.  That 
keeps  up  our  connection  with  life  —  I  mean  of  the  im- 
mediate and  apparent  life;  behind  which,  all  the  while, 
the  deeper  and  darker  and  unapparent,  in  which  things 
really  happen  to  us,  learns,  under  that  hygiene,  to  stay 
in  its  place.  Let  it  get  out  of  its  place  and  it  swamps 
the  scene ;  besides  which  its  place,  God  knows,  is  enough 
for  it!  Live  it  all  through,  every  inch  of  it  —  out  of  it 

188 


HENRY  JAMES 

something  valuable  will  come — but  live  it  ever  so 
quietly."87^ 

So  it  seems  that  the  whole  personal  life  of  James, 
aside  from  his  art,  centered  in  simple  human  affection. 
And  the  flower  of  this  affection  was  his  passionate 
interest  in  the  Great  War.  I  do  not  think  he  was  much 
concerned  with  the  political  and  moral  questions  in- 
volved. He  rarely  discusses  or  refers  to  them,  and  such 
things  never  had  interested  him  before.  But  those  he 
loved  were  suffering,  those  whom  his  friends  loved 
were  suffering,  humanity  was  suffering.  And  all  the 
depths  of  tenderness,  which  lay  always,  not  smothered, 
but  eclipsed,  forgotten,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
was  called  into  intense,  active,  beneficent  energy. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  those  terrible  years,  something 
would  have  been  missing,  not  to  his  character,  for  it 
was  there  deep  hidden  all  along,  but  to  our  understand- 
ing and  appreciation  of  his  character.  He  was  always 
a  great  writer,  but  the  war  revealed  him  to  every  one 
as  a  most  lovable  man. 

in 

YET,  after  all,  his  real  humanity,  his  essential,  vivid, 
passionate  existence,  was  in  his  art,  and  it  is  most 
curious  to  watch  him  living  perfectly  in  the  exercise 
of  that,  when  he  was  so  largely  oblivious  to  every- 
thing else.  "What's  art  but  an  intense  life  —  if  it  be 
real?"  says  one  of  his  characters. 88  The  art  of  Henry 
James  was  an  intense  life,  at  any  rate. 

All  his  days  he  labored  at  it  and  much  of  his  nights 
was  given  to  new  developments,  new  inventions,  new 

189 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

and  vaster  analysis.  The  taking  of  notes  was  his  busi- 
ness. He  took  notes  on  pleasure  and  pain,  on  suffering 
and  hope,  notes  on  any  casual  incident  of  life,  notes  on 
his  family,  on  his  friends,  on  himself.  "  If  one  was  to 
undertake  to  tell  tales,"  he  says,  "and  to  report  with 
truth  on  the  human  scene,  it  could  be  but  because 
'notes'  had  been  from  the  cradle  the  ineluctable  con- 
sequence of  one's  greatest  inward  energy." 39  In  this 
close  and  unremitting  effort  there  was,  of  course,  a  large 
amount  of  ambition,  of  desire  for  direct  and  obvious 
success,  butpt  was  also  a  matter  of  instinct,  of  a  habit 
of  life  which  with  daily  exercise  grew  ever  more  exact- 
ing and  more  tyrannous. 

And  it  was  not  only  the  formal  daily  habit,  the  rooted 
necessity  of  accomplishing  a  definite  task  at  a  definite 
hour.  There  was  a  splendid  glow  and  thrill  of  excite- 
ment in  the  work.  External  stimulus  might  help, 
the  commendation  of  friends,  the  enthusiasm  of  ad- 
mirers, even  the  stinging  of  captious  critics.  But  the 
external  was  often  more  annoying  than  helpful.  "I 
wince  even  at  eulogy,  and  I  wither  (for  exactly  2  min- 
utes and  y£)  at  any  qualification  of  adulation."  40 
What  really  counted  was  the  rushing,  the  inexplicable 
artistic  impetus  itself.  Why  should  a  weary  soul  toil 
and  strain  to  make  a  troop  of  shadows  strut  and  fret 
and  vex  themselves  for  an  hour  and  then  fade  utterly? 
Who  knows?  But  James  did  it  with  devouring  passion, 
like  so  many  others.  And  the  decay  of  age  and  the 
wretched  debility  of  the  body  did  not  diminish  one 
jot  the  fury  of  creative  hope.  At  sixty-five  he  writes: 
"I  never  have  had  such  a  sense  of  almost  bursting, 

190 


HENRY  JAMES 

late  in  the  day  though  it  be,  with  violent  and  lately  too 
much  repressed  creative  .  .  .  intention."  41 

And  of  course  triumph  and  success,  when  they  came, 
as  they  did  come  in  even  James's  remote,  perplexed, 
and  unpopular  career,  were  acceptable,  were  welcome. 
To  what  artist  are  they  not?  "Daisy  Miller  has  been, 
as  I  have  told  you  before,  a  really  quite  extraordinary 
hit," 42  and  such  hits  do  tickle  the  heart  that  is  most 
detached.  But  the  best  glory — perhaps  —  is  the  feel- 
ing of  secure  achievement,  and  the  best  commendation 
is  one's  own:  "The  thing  carries  itself  to  my  maturer 
and  gratified  sense  as  with  every  symptom  of  sound- 
ness, an  insolence  of  health  and  joy."  43 

The  mischief  of  it  is  that  this  splendid  exultation  in 
what  one  has  accomplished  does  not,  cannot  last. 
There  are  the  difficulties  of  accomplishing  anything. 
There  are  the  external  difficulties,  the  horrid  plague 
of  printers  and  publishers,  interruptions,  distractions. 
There  are  the  internal  difficulties,  still  worse,  when  in- 
spiration simply  stops  and  one  sits  and  stares  and  longs 
and  does  nothing  and  gets  nowhere.  Moreover,  no 
critic,  however  captious,  sees  one's  defects  so  clearly 
and  overpoweringly  as  one  sees  them  one's  self.  One 
sees  them  so  well,  is  so  cuttingly  aware  of  the  weak 
points,  that  on  dark  days  it  seems  as  if  the  work  was 
all  weak  points  and  nothing  else. 

And  then  come  depression  and  discouragement,  even 
in  a  buoyant  soul,  and  James,  as  he  himself  admits, 
had  a  soul  to  which  anxiety  and  dread  came  far  too 
easily.  He  is  depressed  if  he  is  prevented  from  work- 
ing. When  he  begins  a  piece  of  work,  he  is  haunted  by 

191 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

"a  nervous  fear  that  I  shall  not  have  enough  of  my 
peculiar  tap  to  'go  round.'"44  And  again,  "To  finish 
a  book  in  quiet  and  to  begin  another  in  fear. " 45  While 
the  completion  is  really  as  agitating  as  the  commence- 
ment :  "always  ridden  by  a  superstitious  terror  of  not  fin- 
ishing, for  finishing's  and  for  the  precedent's  sake,  what 
I  have  begun." 46  And  for  those  who  look  upon  author- 
ship as  an  ecstasy,  he  has  this  general  comment,  which 
is  certainly  not  exhilarating:  "The  profession  of  delight 
has  always  struck  me  as  the  last  to  consort,  for  the 
artist,  with  any  candid  account  of  his  troubled  effort — 
ever  the  sum,  for  the  most  part,  of  so  many  lapses  and 
compromises,  simplifications  and  surrenders."  47 

Also,  however  indifferent  one  may  be  to  the  commen- 
dation of  the  general  public,  the  sense  of  failure  is 
wearing,  blighting  to  any  mortal  man.  And  it  cannot 
be  denied  that,  as  regards  the  reading  world  at  large, 
failure  was  the  usual  lot  of  Henry  James.  Works  re- 
jected, works  accepted  and  delayed  indefinitely  in  pub- 
lication, works  published  and  then  treated  with  care- 
less indifference,  bringing  little  praise  and  less  profit  — 
when  these  torment  the  beginner  in  literature,  he 
may  remember  that  they  also  tormented  the  greatest 
of  American  novelists. 

Nothing  epitomizes  better  James's  struggle  and 
effort,  his  gleams  of  hope  and  success,  and  his  complete 
lack  of  it  in  the  grosser  sense,  than  his  dealings  with  the 
theatre.  He  did  not  turn  his  attention  to  the  stage  till 
comparatively  late  in  life,  and  therefore  there  was  al- 
ways the  consolation  that  if  he  had  begun  younger  he 
could  have  accomplished  more.  But  when  the  fever 

192 


HENRY  JAMES 

seizes  him,  he  is  convinced  that  at  last  he  has  found  his 
proper  sphere  and  that  the  drama  is  the  real  medium 
in  which  his  genius  should  achieve  its  destined  work- 
ing. "The  strange  thing  is  that  I  always,  universally, 
knew  this  was  my  more  characteristic  form  —  but  was 
kept  away  from  it  by  a  half-modest,  half-exaggerated 
sense  of  the  difficulty  ...  of  the  conditions.  But  now 
that  I  have  accepted  them  and  met  them,  I  see  that 
one  isn't  at  all,  needfully,  their  victim,  but  is,  from  the 
moment  one  is  anything,  one's  self,  worth  speaking 
of,  their  master." 48  And  he  sets  himself  to  be  the  mas- 
ter triumphantly.  He  toils  more  than  he  ever  dreamed 
of  toiling  on  fiction.  He  studies  the  secrets  of  tech- 
nique with  which  those  who^think  they  understand 
the  theatre  have  beguiled  so  many  passionate  aspir- 
ants. He  has  his  moments  of  hope,  of  confidence,  of 
enthusiasm,  and  portrays  them  with  his  customary 
vividness.  A  fairly  successful  provincial  performance 
cheers  him,  encourages  him.  "The  passage  from 
knock-kneed  nervousness  (the  night  of  the  premiere, 
as  one  clings  in  the  wings,  to  the  curtain  rod,  as  to  the 
pied  des  autels)  to  a  simmering  serenity  is  especially 
life-saving  in  its  effect." 49  Then  things  go  wrong  and 
hope  yields  to  utter  disgust.  And  again,  after  one 
failure,  after  two  failures,  a  word  of  praise,  a  trifle  of 
alluring  temptation,  seduce  him  to  renewed,  more 
strenuous  effort.  But  the  end  is  fatal,  inevitable,  as 
it  has  been  for  so  many  whom  that  fascinating  siren 
has  betrayed  to  far  more  complete  destruction.  Actors 
are  patronizing,  encroaching,  tyrannous,  ignorant. 
Audiences  are  more  tyrannous  and  more  ignorant  still. 

193 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

Let  us  leave  the  loathed  stage  and  go  back  to  the  quiet 
writing  of  profound,  great  fiction,  where  at  least  the 
failure  is  that  of  indifference  and  not  of  audible  con- 
tempt. 

Through  all  this  theatrical  convulsion  a  common  pre- 
text with  James  was  that  he  needed  money  and  that  the 
theatre  was  a  dazzlingly  facile  and  convenient  means  of 
getting  it.  All  he  cared  to  give  to  the  stage  was  "  time  to 
dig  out  eight  or  ten  rounded  masterpieces  and  make 
withal  enough  money  to  enable  me  to  retire  in  peace  and 
plenty  for  the  unmolested  business  of  a  little  supreme 
writing  as  distinguished  from  gouging."80  Alas,  the 
stage  was  no  more  fruitful  than  other  things  in  this  di- 
rection, and  it  is  really  pitiful  to  see  that  such  enormous 
labor  and  such  admirable  genius  could  produce  no  more 
tangible  pecuniary  result.  But  it  is  clear  enough  that, 
though  money  might  be  the  pretext,  the  passion  went 
far  deeper  than  money.  Success,  triumph,  applause, 
in  one  simple  word,  glory,  were  underlying  motives 
with  James,  as  with  all  other  artists.  He  longed,  not 
only  to  do  great  things,  but  to  have  the  seal  of  imme- 
diate wonder  and  enthusiasm  set  upon  them.  And  in 
spite  of  the  approval  of  many  of  the  discerning,  few 
writers  who  have  toiled  so  vastly  and  worthily  have 
received  less  of  universal  recognition. 

The  fine,  the  most  notable  thing  through  all  this  com- 
parative failure  is  the  largeness,  the  sweetness,  the  dig- 
nity of  James's  attitude.  Such  public  neglect  of  a  man's 
work  is  apt  to  produce  sourness  and  bitterness.  With 
him  it  did  not.  Criticism  he  considered  thoughtfully 
and  estimated  wisely.  It  did  not,  indeed,  often  affect 

194 


HENRY  JAMES 

his  aims  or  methods.  When  does  it  ever?  But  he  showed 
a  large  charity  in  entering  into  the  intention  of  the 
critic,  was  always  ready  to  allow  for  other  points  of 
view  than  his  own.  Nor  did  he  often  fall  into  the  error 
of  so  many  disappointed  authors,  that  of  railing  against 
the  taste  of  his  contemporaries.  He  could  not  always 
resist  some  rebellion  against  the  triumph  of  the  mediocre, 
could  not  accept  the  vogue  of  the  obviously  cheap 
and  tawdry.  But  in  the  main  he  feels  that  he  writes 
for  the  few  and  with  the  discerning  commendation  of 
the  few  he  must  be  satisfied.  And  his  are  the  admirable 
words  of  rebuke  to  those  who  would  revenge  their 
ill-success  upon  the  world  about  them:  "Most  forms  of 
contempt  are  unwise;  but  one  of  them  seems  to  us 
peculiarly  ridiculous  —  contempt  for  the  age  one  lives 
in."  61  Broad  kindliness,  thoughtful,  earnest,  patient 
sincerity,  these  are  not  always  the  distinguishing 
qualities  of  the  artist;  in  James  they  were  eminently 
and  charmingly  exemplified. 

In  nothing  perhaps  more  than  in  his  tone  toward  his 
fellow-writers.  Here  again  pretentious  emptiness  some- 
times wins  deserved  condemnation.  But  in  the  main 
he  was  largely  generous  and  sympathetic.  He  had  many 
close  friends  among  the  authors  of  his  time,  friends  to 
whom  he  wrote  with  the  peculiar  exquisite  tenderness 
of  friendship  that  characterizes  his  letters.  Many  of 
these  friends  were  much  younger  than  he  and  many  of 
them  quickly  passed  him  in  the  race  for  success  and 
financial  profit.  He  never  resented  this,  never  showed 
any  small  soreness  or  grudging.  He  counseled  wisely 
and  congratulated  warmly  and  cherished  an  ever- 

195 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

growing  affection  where  in  many  rivalry  would  have 
fostered  a  certain  chilliness,  if  not  estrangement. 
Few  things  of  the  kind  are  more  touching  and  pleasing 
than  his  manly,  simple  acceptance  of  the  unneces- 
sary and  ill-mannered  criticism  introduced  by  his  near 
friend  Mr.  Wells  into  his  novel  "Boon."  61 

So  the  long,  patient,  toilsome  life  flitted  away, 
leaving  a  huge  mass  of  production  behind  it,  which, 
after  all,  had  perhaps  not  greatly  affected  the  busy 
world.  But  with  all  the  toil  and  all  the  struggle  and  all 
the  disappointment,  few  writers  have  got  more  sub- 
stantial satisfaction  out  of  the  mere  doing  of  their  own 
work.  The  mystery  of  words  and  their  strange,  subtle, 
creative  and  created  relation  to  thoughts  has  not 
been  fully  elucidated  yet  and  perhaps  never  will  be. 
But  it  is  certain  that,  for  the  born  worker  in  them, 
they  have  inexplicable  and  inexhaustible  secrets  and 
sources  of  delight  and  joy.  Who  is  there  who  has 
probed  these  secrets  and  drained  these  sources  more 
passionately  than  Henry  James? 


VIII 

JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 


CHRONOLOGY 

Joseph  Jefferson. 

Born,  Philadelphia,  February  20,  1829. 

Acted  at  Franklin  Theatre,  New  York,  1837. 

Married  Margaret  Clements  Lockyer,  May  19,  1850. 

Made  hit  as  Dr.  Pangloss,  August  31,  1857. 

In  Australia,  1861-1865. 

Appeared  as  Rip  Van  Winkle  at  the  Adelphi  Theatre, 

London,  September  4,  1865. 

Married  Sarah  Isabel  Warren,  December  20,  1867. 
Produced  The  Rivals  at  the  Arch  Street  Theatre, 

Philadelphia,  1880. 
Published  Autobiography,  1889-1890. 
All-Star  Rivals  Tour,  1896. 
Died,  Palm  Beach,  Florida,  April  23,  1905. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 


VIII 
JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 


JEFFERSON  was  not  born  on  the  stage,  but  his  fam- 
ily for  generations  had  been  associated  with  the 
theatre.  His  first  appearance  that  he  remembered 
was  in  1832,  when  he  was  three  years  old,  and  he  con- 
tinued to  act  in  all  sorts  of  parts  and  with  all  sorts  of 
experiences  almost  till  his  death  in  1905.  The  theatrical 
influence  and  atmosphere  seemed  to  surround  him 
at  all  times.  He  grew  up  with  the  strange  richness 
of  wandering  Bohemian  vagrancy  which  attaches  to 
the  profession  in  the  dreams  of  youth,  and  he  met  his 
full  share  of  the  hard  knocks  and  bitter  struggles  which 
the  dreams  of  youth  pass  over  lightly.  Also,  he  had 
something  of  the  easy,  gracious  temper  which  en- 
joys the  charms  of  such  a  life  and  takes  the  trials  as 
they  come.  His  father  had  even  more  of  it.  When  he 
was  reduced  to  total  bankruptcy,  he  went  fishing,  and 
said  to  those  who  found  him  so  occupied:  "I  have  lost 
everything,  and  I  am  so  poor  now  that  I  really  cannot 
afford  to  let  anything  worry  me." l  The  son  inherited 
from  his  mother  a  soul  of  somewhat  more  substan- 
tial tissue.  He  did  not  like  bankruptcy  and  avoided 
it.  Yet  even  he  thoroughly  savored  a  nomad  life  and 
a  changing  world.  He  writes  of  such:  "It  had  a  rov- 
ing* joyous,  gipsy  kind  of  attraction  in  it  that  was 

199 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

irresistible."  *  It  is  said  that  his  great-grandmother 
died  laughing.8  He  lived  laughing,  at  any  rate,  or 
smiling,  with  the  tenderest  sympathy,  at  all  the  strange 
vagaries  of  existence.  To  be  sure  of  it,  you  need  only 
study  his  portraits,  that  curiously  wrinkled  face,  which 
seems  as  if  generations  of  laughter  had  kneaded  it  to 
the  perfect  expression  of  all  pathos  and  all  gayety 

The  striking  thing  is  that,  with  this  profuse  contact 
with  every  side  of  human  experience,  which  must  have 
included  the  basest,  the  most  sordid,  the  most  vicious, 
the  man  should  have  kept  his  own  nature  high  and 
pure  to  a  singular  degree.  Certainly  no  one  was  more 
in  the  world,  and  in  a  sense  of  the  world;  yet  few  have 
remained  more  unspotted  by  it.  He  often  quoted  with 
approval  the  fine  saying,  "We  cannot  change  the 
world,  but  we  can  keep  away  from  it."  4  He  kept  away 
from  it  in  spirit.  His  great  friend,  President  Cleveland, 
said  of  him:  "Many  knew  how  free  he  was  from  hatred, 
malice,  and  uncharitableness,  but  fewer  knew  how 
harmonious  his  qualities  of  heart,  and  mind,  and  con- 
science blended  in  the  creation  of  an  honest,  upright, 
sincere,  and  God-fearing  man." B  And  Colonel  Watter- 
son,  who  was  intimately  acquainted  with  him,  remarks, 
more  specifically:  "I  never  knew  a  man  whose  moral 
sensibilities  were  more  acute.  He  loved  the  respect- 
able. He  detested  the  unclean." 6 

This  moral  tone  was  not  simply  the  sanity  of  a 
wholesome,  well-adjusted  nature;  it  was  a  delicacy,  an 
instinctive  refinement  that  rejected  the  subtler  shades 
of  coarseness  as  well  as  mere  brutality.  Not  that 
Jefferson  was  the  least  in  the  world  of  a  Puritan.  The 

200 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

suggestion  would  be  laughable.  But  he  avoided  th& 
obscene  as  he  avoided  the  ugly.  He  disliked  grossness 
on  the  stage  as  he  disliked  it  in  the  drawing-room,  and 
even  deliberately  asserted  that  the  latter  should  be  a 
criterion  for  the  former,7  which  is  perhaps  going  a 
little  far.  And  he  wanted  as  much  decency  behind  the 
scenes  as  before.  "Booth's  theatre,"  he  said,  "is  con- 
ducted as  a  theatre  should  be  —  like  a  church  behind 
the  curtain  and  like  a  counting-house  in  front  of  it." 8 

He  not  only  avoided  the  moral  looseness  of  Bohemi- 
anism;  he  could  not  tolerate  its  easy-going  indifference 
to  artistic  method.  He  reflected  deeply  and  carefully 
on  the  nature  of  his  art  and  did  not  cease  to  reflect  on 
it  as  long  as  he  practised  it.  He  had  definite  views  as 
to  its  purpose,  and,  while  we  may  not  agree  with  those 
views,  we  must  at  least  recognize  their  validity  for  one 
of  Jefferson's  temperament.  Realism  he  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with.  Art,  he  urged,  was  from  its  very 
nature  selective,  suggestive,  aimed  to  give  the  spiritual 
essence,  not  the  superficial,  material  detail.  Just  so  far 
as  these  details  served  the  spirit,  they  were  to  be  used 
and  developed  amply;  but  they  were  to  be  disregarded 
altogether,  when  they  threatened  to  drag  down  the 
spirit  and  smother  it. 

He  gave  careful  attention  to  the  audience  and  its 
point  of  view.  The  strength  of  his  artistic  achievement 
lay  both  in  distinction  and  in  human  feeling,  but  with 
the  emphasis  rather  on  human  feeling,  and  he  knew  it 
and  studied  the  human  hearts  to  which  he  addressed 
himself.  All  the  human  hearts,  moreover.  He  was  no 
actor  to  evening  dress  and  diamonds.  How  admirable 

201 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

is  his  appeal  to  Miss  Shaw  to  remember  the  second 
balcony:  "They  are  just  as  much  entitled  to  hear  and 
see  and  enjoy  as  are  the  persons  in  the  private  boxes."  9 

And  he  reflected  and  often  spoke  on  the  great 
critical  problem  of  whether  the  actor  should  act  from 
feeling  or  from  intellect.  To  Jefferson's  keen  common 
sense  the  problem  was  hardly  a  problem  at  all.  Every 
actor  must  use  feeling  and  intellect  both,  the  propor- 
tion differing  according  to  the  temperament.  An 
intense  imaginative  sympathy  with  the  emotion  of  the 
character  involved  must  lie  at  the  bottom  of  every 
successful  impersonation.  But  this  imaginative  sym- 
pathy must  at  all  times  be  controlled  by  clear  and 
competent  analysis.  Surely  no  actor  could  have  had 
keener  sensibilities  than  had  Jefferson  himself.  Once, 
at  a  pathetic  moment  in  a  part  he  had  played  over  and 
over  again,  he  was  observed  to  falter,  lost  himself, 
and  the  curtain  fell  abruptly.  "I  broke  down,"  he 
explained  afterwards,  "completely  broke  down.  I 
turned  away  from  the  audience  to  recover  myself.  But 
I  could  not  and  had  the  curtain  rung."  10  Yet  he  was 
commonly  self-possessed  enough  in  the  most  intense 
situations  to  make  comments  to  his  fellow-actors,  and 
he  summed  up  the  whole  question  in  the  often-quoted 
saying,  "For  myself,  I  know  that  I  act  best  when  the 
heart  is  warm  and  the  head  is  cool."  u 

As  Jefferson  was  thorough  in  analyzing  the  theory 
of  his  profession,  so  he  was  industrious  and  conscien- 
tious in  the  practice  of  it.  Although,  in  his  later  years, 
he  confined  himself  to  a  few  parts,  he  had  been  in  his 
youth  an  actor  of  wide  range,  and  he  never  ceased  to 

202 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

study  his  oft-repeated  triumphs  for  new  effects  and 
possibilities,  was  never  the  man  to  lie  back  upon  es- 
tablished reputation  and  forget  the  toil  necessary  to 
sustain  it.  "I  learn  something  about  my  art  every 
night,"  he  said,  even  in  old  age. ll  And  he  not  only 
worked,  but  he  worked  with  method  and  foresight.  He 
suggests  in  his  "Autobiography"  that  he  was  careless 
and  unreliable  as  to  facts, 13  and  perhaps  he  was  in  indif- 
ferent matters.  But  when  it  came  to  planning  a  cam- 
paign, he  knew  what  he  was  seeking  and  got  it.  For  he 
was  an  excellent  man  of  business.  So  many  actors  earn 
great  sums  and  let  them  slip  through  their  fingers. 
Not  Jefferson.  His  ideas  of  financial  management  were 
broad  and  liberal.  He  put  no  spite  into  it  and  no  mean- 
ness. See  his  excellent  remarks  on  competition  and 
opposition. 14  Nor  did  he  desire  money  for  itself.  A 
moderate  income  is  enough  for  him.  "Less  than  this 
may  be  inconvenient  at  times;  more  than  this  is  a 
nuisance."  15  But  hard  lessons  had  taught  him  the 
value  of  a  dollar  when  he  saw  it,  the  pleasure  it  would 
give  and  the  misery  it  would  save,  and  when  the  dollars 
came,  he  held  on  to  them. 

In  his  relations  with  his  fellow-actors  he  appears  to 
have  been  delightful.  At  least  I  have  looked  rather 
widely  for  fault-finding  and  have  not  discovered  it.  He 
enjoyed  practical  jokes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  exqui- 
sitely dressed  dandy  whom  he  had  to  embrace  upon  the 
stage:  "I  held  him  tight  and  rumpled  his  curls,  and 
then  I  heard  him  murmur,  in  a  tone  of  positive  agony, 
'  Oh,  God !'  He  was  not  in  the  least  hurt,  but  he  seemed 
to  feel  that  his  last  hour  had  come."16  No  doubt 

203 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

Jefferson  was  tolerant  of  such  jokes  when  played  upon 
him.  Also,  with  his  charming  frankness,  he  lays  bare 
in  himself  the  weaknesses  to  which  human  nature  is 
liable.  Jealousy?  "In  this  instance  my  rival  was  a 
good  actor,  but  not  too  good  to  be  jealous  of  me,  and 
if  our  positions  had  been  reversed  the  chances  are  that 
I  would  have  been  jealous  of  him."  17  Temper?  He 
had  temper  and  showed  it,  as  he  illustrates  by  various 
examples,  without  excusing  himself.  Quarrels?  They 
occurred  in  his  life,  as  in  most  lives,  and  he  admits  that 
his  part  in  them  was  not  always  creditable.  But  the 
quarrels  were  relieved  and  soon  healed  by  a  wide  com- 
prehension of  the  human  heart  and  love  of  it.  And, 
above  all,  a  sane  philosophy  taught  that  no  quarrel 
should  be  perpetuated  by  talking  about  it  or  making 
any  parade  of  it  whatever.  "If  people  could  only 
realize  how  little  the  public  care  for  the  private  quar- 
rels of  individuals  —  except  to  laugh  at  them  —  they 
would  hesitate  before  entering  upon  a  newspaper  con- 
troversy." 18  If  Whistler  could  have  learned  that  lesson, 
his  life  would  have  been  pleasanter  to  read  about. 

And  Jefferson's  good  terms  with  his  fellows  were  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  negative.  He  was  always 
ready  for  a  frolic  with  them.  He  was  cordially  inter- 
ested in  their  affairs.  He  was  willing  to  give  both 
money  and  time  to  extricate  them  from  difficulties. 
He  could  do  what  is  perhaps  even  harder,  bestow 
unstinted  and  discerning  praise  upon  their  achieve- 
ments. And  he  could  stand  up  for  their  professional 
dignity,  whether  they  were  alive  or  dead.  When  a 
fashionable  minister  refused  to  perform  the  funeral 

204 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

service  for  an  actor  on  account  of  his  calling,  Jefferson 
asked  in  wrath  if  there  was  no  church  where  he  could 
get  it  done.  "There  is  a  little  church  around  the  cor- 
ner," was  the  reply.  "Then,  if  this  be  so,  God  bless  'the 
little  church  around  the  corner.' "  19  The  name  sticks 
to  this  day.  No  wonder  that  a  friend  who  knew  him 
intimately  could  write,  "He  was  the  most  lovable  per- 
son I  had  ever  met  either  in  or  out  of  my  profession."  10 

A  better  test  than  even  relations  with  the  profession 
generally  is  that  of  management  of  the  actors  in  his 
own  company  and  under  his  especial  charge.  It  is 
evident  that  he  preserved  discipline.  Irregularities  in 
conduct  and  irregularities  in  artistic  method  he  would 
not  tolerate.  But  he  was  reasonable  in  discipline,  and 
he  was  gentle,  as  gentle,  we  are  told,  with  his  sub- 
ordinates as  with  his  children  and  grandchildren. J1 
In  strong  contrast  to  actors  like  Macready  and  Forrest, 
he  had  the  largest  patience  in  meeting  unexpected 
difficulties.  One  night  the  curtain  dropped  in  the 
midst  of  a  critical  scene.  Jefferson  accepted  the  situa- 
tion with  perfect  calmness.  Afterwards  he  inquired 
the  cause  of  the  trouble,  and  one  of  the  stage-hands 
explained  that  he  had  leaned  against  the  button  that 
gave  the  signal.  "Well,"  said  Jefferson,  "will  you 
kindly  find  some  other  place  to  lean  to-morrow 
night?"  " 

He  was  helpful  to  those  about  him,  and  gave  advice 
and  encouragement  when  needed,  but  this  was  less  by 
constant  lecturing  than  by  the  force  and  suggestion  of 
his  own  example.  You  could  not  be  with  him  without 
learning,  if  you  had  one  atom  of  the  stuff  of  success  in 

205 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

you.  Some  great  artists  daunt  and  discourage  by  their 
very  presence.  Jefferson  soothed.  When  he  saw  that 
you  were  anxious  and  troubled,  "he  laid  his  hand  on 
your  shoulder  in  that  gentle  way  that  stilled  all  tumult 
in  one  and  made  everything  easy  and  possible,  saying: 
•It  will  be  all  right.'"23 

It  is  true  that  some  urged  and  do  still  that  Jefferson 
wanted  all  the  stage  and  all  the  play  to  himself.  At  a 
certain  point  in  his  career  he  became  a  star.  After  that 
he  altered  plays  to  suit  his  own  prominence  and  at  last 
centred  practically  his  whole  effort  on  a  very  inferior 
piece  that  happened  to  be  adapted  to  his  temperament 
and  gave  him  enormous  professional  success.  It  may 
reasonably  be  argued  that  this  desire  to  engross  atten- 
tion to  himself  kept  him  out  of  real  masterpieces,  and 
even  more  subtly  that  he  had  not  the  genius  to  make 
himself  unquestioned  master  of  those  masterpieces. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  admirers  insist  that,  before  he 
became  a  one-part  actor,  he  appeared  in  a  great  variety 
of  parts,  over  a  hundred  in  all,  and  in  most,  com- 
petently, if  not  triumphantly.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
he  himself  felt  the  charges  of  repetition  and  self-as- 
sertion, though  he  could  always  meet  them  with  his 
charming  humor,  as  when  he  tells  the  story  of  his 
friends'  giving  him  a  Christmas  present  of  "The 
Rivals"  with  all  the  parts  but  his  own  cut  out. J4  The 
cleverest  thing  he  ever  said  as  to  the  lack  of  variety 
was  his  answer  to  Matthews,  who  charged  him  with 
making  a  fortune  with  one  part  and  a  carpet-bag.  "It 
is  perhaps  better  to  play  one  part  in  different  ways 
than  to  play  many  parts  all  in  one  way."  25  And  Win- 

206 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

ter's  defence  against  egotism  is  probably  in  the  main 
justified :  "When  he  was  on  the  stage  he  liked  to  be  the 
centre  of  attention;  he  liked  to  have  the  whole  scene  to 
himself;  but  he  perfectly  well  knew  the  importance  of 
auxiliaries  and  the  proportion  of  component  parts  to 
make  up  a  symmetrical  whole;  he  could,  and  when 
needful,  he  always  did  completely  subordinate  himself 
to  the  requirements  of  the  scene."  26 

But  by  far  the  most  interesting  light  on  Jefferson's 
view  of  his  own  professional  methods  is  to  be  found  in 
the  conversation  reported  by  Miss  Mary  Shaw  as  to  her 
performance  of  Gretchen  in  "Rip  Van  Winkle."  Miss 
Shaw  had  been  inclined  to  emphasize  the  possibilities 
of  tenderness  in  Gretchen's  character,  but  Jefferson, 
in  his  infinitely  gentle  way,  put  a  stop  to  this  immedi- 
ately. "You  must  not  once  during  the  play,  except  in 
the  last  act,  call  the  attention  of  the  audience  to  any 
ordinary  rule  of  conduct  or  mode  of  feeling.  You  must 
play  everything  with  the  idea  of  putting  forth  this 
central  figure  Rip  Van  Winkle,  as  more  and  more  lov- 
able, the  more  and  more  he  outrages  the  sensibilities, 
that  being  the  ethical  meaning  of  the  play."  *7  And  there 
are  many  other  words  to  the  same  effect,  all  admirably 
ingenious  and  on  the  whole  reasonable.  Only  I  should 
like  to  have  seen  Jefferson  smile,  as  he  said  them. 

Whether  he  smiled,  or  whether  he  was  serious,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that,  with  all  his  gentleness  and  all  his 
humor,  he  had  an  immense  ambition  that  stuck  by 
him  till  he  died.  Over  and  over  again  he  acknowledges 
this,  with  his  graceful  jesting,  which  covers  absolute 
sincerity:  "As  the  curtain  descended  the  first  night 

207 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

on  that  remarkably  successful  play  ["Our  American 
Cousin"],  visions  of  large  type,  foreign  countries,  and 
increased  remuneration  floated  before  me,  and  I  re- 
solved to  be  a  star  if  I  could." 28  Those  who  think  only 
of  his  later  glory  do  not  realize  the  long  years  of  diffi- 
culty and  struggle.  His  youth  knew  the  plague  of 
fruitless  effort.  He  met  hunger  and  cold,  deception  and 
rejection.  His  words  about  failure  have  the  vividness 
of  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  subject.  "  If  you  are 
unsuccessful  as  a  poet,  a  painter,  an  architect,  or  even 
a  mechanic,  it  is  only  your  work  that  has  failed;  but 
with  the  actor  it  does  not  end  here :  if  he  be  condemned, 
it  is  himself  that  has  failed."  29  And  further,  "The 
mortification  of  a  personal  and  public  slight  is  so  hard 
to  bear  that  he  casts  about  for  any  excuse  rather  than 
lay  the  blame  upon  himself."10  Stage-fright,  utter 
distrust  of  genius  and  fortune,  —  he  knew  it,  oh,  how 
well  he  knew  it!  To  the  very  end  he  was  nervous  over 
the  chance  of  some  sudden  incapacity  or  untoward 
accident.  "I  am  always  attacked  with  a  nervous  fit 
when  I  am  to  meet  a  new  assemblage  of  actors  and 
actresses."  S1  And  he  said  to  an  amateur  who  asked 
him  for  a  cure  for  such  feelings,  "If  you  find  one,  I 
wish  you  would  let  me  have  it."  M 

He  wras  as  sensitive  to  applause  and  appreciation  as 
to  failure.  When  words  of  approval  began  to  come, 
they  were  drunk  in  with  eagerness.  "How  anxious  I 
used  to  be  in  the  morning  to  see  what  the  critic  said, 
quickly  scanning  the  article  and  skipping  over  the 
praise  of  the  other  actors,  so  as  to  get  to  what  they 
said  about  me."  33  And  years  did  not  abate  the  zest  or 

208 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

dull  the  edge  of  it.  To  be  sure,  he  liked  discretion  in 
compliments,  as  did  Doctor  Johnson,  who  said  to 
Hannah  More,  "Madam,  before  you  flatter  a  man  so 
grossly  to  his  face,  you  should  consider  whether  your 
flattery  is  worth  his  having."  Jefferson's  method  was 
gentler.  To  a  lady  who  hailed  him  as  "You  dear,  great 
man!"  he  answered,  "Madam,  you  make  me  very 
uncomfortable."  S4  But  when  the  compliments  were 
deftly  managed,  he  liked  them.  "He  was  susceptible 
to  honest  admiration,"  says  Mr.  Wilson.  "I  have 
often  heard  him  declare  since,  that  he  would  not  give 
the  snap  of  his  finger  for  anybody  who  was  not."  85 
And  when  the  compliment  came,  not  from  an  individ- 
ual, but  from  a  vast  audience,  he  found  it  uplifting, 
exhilarating  beyond  most  things  on  earth.  This  stimu- 
lus was  so  splendid,  so  out  of  normal  experience,  that, 
with  his  mystical  bent,  he  was  inclined  to  relate  it  to 
some  magnetic  agency.  "He  claimed,"  says  Miss 
Shaw,  "that  what  he  gave  the  audience  in  nervous 
force,  in  artistic  effort,  in  inspiration,  he  received  back 
in  full  measure,  pressed  down  and  running  over.  .  .  . 
And  how  well  I  saw  this  great  truth  demonstrated  by 
Mr.  Jefferson.  Every  night  this  delicate  old  man,  after 
having  been  virtually  on  the  stage  every  moment  for 
hours  in  a  play  he  had  acted  for  thirty-seven  years,  and 
which  therefore  of  itself  afforded  him  little  or  no  in- 
spiration, would  come  off  absolutely  refreshed  instead 
of  exhausted."  ie 

Few  human  beings  have  had  more  opportunity  to 
drink  the  cup  of  immediate  triumph  to  the  bottom. 
Jefferson  himself  often  enlarged  upon  the  ephemeral 

209 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

quality  of  the  actor's  glory.  No  doubt  the  thought  of 
this  gave  added  poignancy  to  his  rendering  of  the 
celebrated  phrase  in  "Rip  Van  Winkle,"  "Are  we  so 
soon  forgot  when  we  are  gone!"37  And  he  urged  that 
it  was  but  just  that  this  glory,  being  so  brief,  should  be 
immense  and  fully  savored.  He  savored  it,  with  perfect 
appreciation  of  its  casual  elements,  but  still  he  savored 
it  with  large  and  long  delight.  He  recognized  fully  that 
his  lot  had  been  fortunate,  and  that,  although  he  had 
had  to  toil  for  success,  he  had  achieved  it.  "I  have 
always  been  a  very  contented  man  whatever  hap- 
pened," he  said,  "and  I  think  I  have  had  good  reason 
to  be." S8  He  recognized  also  in  his  triumph  the  sub- 
stantial quality  which  comes  from  normal  growth;  as 
he  beautifully  phrased  it,  "that  sweet  and  gradual 
ascent  to  good  fortune  that  is  so  humanizing."  89 
Respect,  tenderness,  appreciation,  from  young  and  old, 
rich  and  poor,  wise  and  unwise,  flowed  about  his  ripe 
age  and  mellowed  it,  and  he  acknowledged  them  again 
and  again  in  most  touching  words.  "  It  has  been  dear 
to  me  —  this  life  of  illuminated  emotion  —  and  it  has 
been  so  magnificently  repaid.  ...  I  have  been  doubly 
repaid  by  the  sympathetic  presence  of  the  people  when 
I  was  playing,  and  the  affection  that  seems  to  follow 
me,  like  the  sunshine  streaming  after  a  man  going 
down  the  forest  trail  that  leads  over  the  hills  to  the 
lands  of  morning.  No,  I  can't  put  it  in  words."  4I 
Then  he  added,  with  the  whimsical  turn  which  gave 
his  talk  so  much  of  its  charm,  "Perhaps  it's  a  good 
thing  to  quit  the  stage  before  the  people  have  a  chance 
to  change  their  minds  about  me."  41 

210 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

As  is  well  known,  the  climax  of  Jefferson's  fortunate 
career  lay  in  the  discovery  of  "  Rip  Van  Winkle,"  not 
of  course  as  a  new  play,  but  as  something  perfectly 
suited  to  Jefferson  himself.  His  whole  account  of  this 
discovery,  of  the  first  suggestion  on  a  haymow  in  a 
country  barn  on  a  rainy  day,  of  the  gradual  growth  of 
the  piece  and  its  final  triumph,  is  extremely  curious. 41 
Equally  curious  is  the  study  of  the  play  itself.  As  read, 
it  appears  to  be  crude,  inept,  inadequate,  illiterate.  It 
is  not  that  the  language  is  simple.  Much  of  it  is  not 
simple,  but  heavily,  commonly  pretentious,  with  that 
conventionality  which  is  as  foreign  to  life  as  it  is  to 
good  writing.  Yet  Jefferson  took  this  infirm,  tottering 
patch  of  literary  ineptitude  and  by  sheer  artistic  skill 
made  it  a  human  masterpiece.  When  the  play  was  first 
produced  in  England,  Boucicault,  the  author,  ex- 
pressed his  doubts  as  to  Jefferson's  handling  of  it: 
"Joe,  I  think  you  are  making  a  mistake:  you  are  shoot- 
ing over  their  heads."  Jefferson  answered:  "I'm  not 
even  shooting  at  their  heads  —  I'm  shooting  at  their 
hearts."  **  He  did  not  miss  his  mark. 

II 

So  much  for  the  actor.  In  studying  him  we  have  had 
glimpses  of  the  man,  but  he  deserves  to  be  developed 
much  more  fully.  First,  as  to  intelligence.  His  shrewd- 
ness, his  keenness,  his  acute  insight  into  life  and  human 
nature  appear  in  every  record  of  him.  He  understood 
men  and  women,  read  their  tempers,  their  desires,  their 
hopes  and  fears;  no  doubt  largely  by  his  own,  as  is  the 
surest  way.  For  he  made  a  constant,  careful,  and 

211 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

clear-sighted'analysis'of  himself.  Few  persons  have  con- 
fided to  us  their  observations  in  this  kind  with  more 
winning  candor.  That  is,  when  he  sees  fit.  His  "Auto- 
biography" is  not  a  psychological  confession  and  deals 
intentionally  with  the  external.  But  the  glimpses  of 
inner  life  that  he  does  give  have  a  singular  clarity.  He 
admitted  his  merits,  if  we  may  accept  the  account  of 
Mr.  Wilson,  whose  conversations  with  him  generally 
bear  the  strongest  mark  of  spiritual  veracity.  "You 
always  do  the  right  thing,"  said  Mr.  Wilson.  "Well," 
said  Jefferson  modestly,  "I  believe  I  make  fewer  mis- 
takes than  most  men.  I  think  I  am  tactful  rather  than 
politic,  the  difference  between  which  is  very  great."  44 
I  find  this  a  little  hard  to  swallow.  But  Jefferson's 
ample  admission  of  his  faults  and  weaknesses  is  appar- 
ent "everywhere  and  is  really  charming.  He  agrees  to 
accept  a  role  to  please  a  friend:  "I  did  so,  partly  to 
help  my  old  partner,  and  partly  to  see  my  name  in 
large  letters.  This  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  enjoyed 
that  felicity,  and  it  had  a  most  soothing  influence  upon 
me."  45  He  sees  a  rival  actor  and  appreciates  his  ex- 
cellence, "though  I  must  confess  that  I  had  a  hard 
struggle  even  inwardly  to  acknowledge  it.  As  I  look 
back  and  call  to  mind  the  slight  touch  of  envy  that  I 
felt  that  night,  I  am  afraid  that  I  had  hoped  to  see 
something  not  quite  so  good,  and  was  a  little  annoyed 
to  find  him  such  a  capital  actor  ."  4<J  All  actors  and  all 
men  feel  these  things;  not  all  have  the  honesty  to  say 
them. 

Also,  Jefferson's  vivacity  and  activity  of  spirit  made 
him  widely  conversant  with  many  subjects.  "I  never 

212 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

discussed  any  topic  of  current  interest  or  moment  with 
him,"  says  Colonel  Watterson,  "that  he  did  not  throw 
upon  it  the  side-lights  of  a  luminous  understanding, 
and  at  the  same  time  an  impartial  and  intelligent  judg- 
ment." 47  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  he 
was  a  profound  or  systematic  thinker,  and  his  acquaint- 
ance with  books,  though  fairly  wide,  was  somewhat 
superficial.  Even  Shakespeare,  whom  he  worshiped 
and  introduced  constantly  into  discussion  and  argu- 
ment, he  had  never  read  through. 

The  truth  is,  he  was  too  busy  living  to  read.  He 
relished  life,  in  all  its  forms  and  energies.  He  was  fond 
of  sport,  and  entered  into  it  with  boyish  ardor.  His 
love  of  fishing  is  widely  known,  because  it  figured  in 
his  relation  with  President  Cleveland.  Their  hearty 
comradeship  is  well  illustrated  by  the  pleasant  anec- 
dote of  Cleveland's  waiting  impatiently  while  Jeffer- 
son chatted  at  his  ease  with  the  commander  of  the 
Oneida.  "Are  you  going  fishing  or  not?"  called  out 
the  President  in  despair.  "  I  do  not  mean  to  stir  until  I 
have  finished  my  story  to  the  Commodore,"  said  the 
actor. 48  Jefferson  sometimes  shot  as  well  as  fished. 
But  in  later  years  the  gun  was  too  much  for  his  natural 
tenderness.  "I  don't  shoot  any  more,"  he  said;  "I 
can't  bear  to  see  the  birds  die."  49  And  it  is  character- 
istic that  to  an  interviewer,  who  had  ventured  some 
casual  comment  on  the  subject,  he  remarked  later, 
"You  said  you  didn't  like  to  kill  things!  It  made  such 
an  impression  on  me  that  I've  never  been  shooting 
since."  60 

Jefferson  would  have  been  even  more  absorbed  in 

213 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

sport  if  he  had  not  had  another  distraction  which  fas- 
cinated him  and  took  most  of  the  time  and  strength 
that  he  could  spare  from  his  regular  pursuits.  From 
his  childhood  he  loved  to  paint.  His  father  did  a  good 
3eal  of  scene-painting  and  the  son,  hardly  out  of 
infancy,  would  get  hold  of  the  father's  colors  and  busy 
himself  with  them  for  hours.  The  passion  endured  and 
grew,  and  Jefferson  even  felt  that,  if  he  had  not  been 
an  actor,  he  would  have  been  a  painter  and  a  success- 
ful one.  His  work,  mostly  landscapes,  shows  the  grace, 
sensibility,  and  subtle  imaginative  quality  of  his 
temperament  as  well  as  the  influence  of  the  great 
French  painters  whom  he  so  much  admired. 

But  what  interests  us  about  Jefferson's  painting  is 
the  hold  it  had  upon  him  and  the  zeal  with  which  he 
threw  himself  into  it  at  all  times.  When  he  was  at 
home,  he  shut  himself  into  his  studio  and  worked. 
When  he  was  touring  the  country,  and  acting  regularly, 
"in  the  early  morning  —  at  half-past  six  or  so  —  he 
would  be  heard  calling  for  his  coffee  and  for  his  palette 
and  brushes.  It  was  ver>  hard  to  get  any  conversation 
out  of  him  during  the  day  that  did  not  in  some  way 
lead  up  to  painting."51  This  is  one  of  the  curious 
cases  of  a  man  with  a  genius  for  one  form  of  art, 
possessed  with  the  desire  to  excel  in  another.  When 
asked  if  it  were  true  that  he  would  rather  paint  than 
act,  he  replied  it  most  emphatically  was. 52  At  any 
rate,  there  can  be  no  question  that  painting  filled  his 
thoughts  almost  as  much  as  acting.  When  he  was  in 
Paris,  he  says,  "  I  painted  pictures  all  day  and  dreamed 
of  them  all  night." 53  He  cherished  the  hope  that  after 

214 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

his  death  his  paintings  would  be  prized  and  sought  for, 
and  he  fondly  instanced  Corot,  whose  work  did  not 
begin  to  sell  till  he  was  fifty.54  A  scene  of  natural 
beauty  always  translated  itself  for  him  into  a  picture. 
One  day,  when  he  had  been  admiring  such  a  scene,  a 
friend  said  to  him,  "Why  don't  you  paint  it?"  "No, 
no,  no!  Not  now."  "And  when?"  "Oh,  sometime  in 
the  future  —  when  I  have  forgotten  it."  «  But  the 
most  charming  comment  on  this  pictorial  passion  is  the 
little  dialogue  between  Cleveland  and  Jefferson  on  the 
morning  after  Cleveland  was  nominated  for  the  second 
time.  Jefferson  was  standing  at  a  window  at  Gray 
Gables,  looking  out  over  the  Bay.  Cleveland  put  a 
hand  on  his  shoulder.  "Joe,"  he  said,  "aren't  yov 
going  to  congratulate  me?"  And  Jefferson:  "Ah,  1 
do!  Believe  me,  I  do  congratulate  you.  But,  good  God, 
if  I  could  paint  like  that,  you  could  be  president  of  a 
dozen  United  States  and  I  wouldn't  change  places 
with  you."  56 

The  drawback  to  painting,  at  least  in  Jefferson's 
case,  was  that  it  was  a  solitary  pleasure.  It  was  only 
when  alone  that  artistic  ideas  would  come  to  him. 57 
He  commented  on  this  with  his  usual  delicate  wit. 
"But  if  I  like  to  be  alone  when  I  paint,  I  have  no  ob- 
jection to  a  great  many  people  when  I  act." 58  And  in 
general  he  had  no  objection  to  a  great  many  people, 
liked  them  in  fact,  and  was  a  thoroughly  social  and 
human  being.  He  had  all  the  qualities  of  a  peculiarly 
social  temperament.  "He  was  full  of  caprices,"  says 
Winter;  "mercurial  and  fanciful;  a  creature  of  moods; 
exceedingly,  almost  morbidly  sensitive;  eagerly  desir- 

215 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

ous  to  please,  because  he  loved  to  see  people  happy." if  • 
He  could  enter  into  the  happiness  of  others,  and 
quite  as  keenly  into  their  distress.  He  was  "sensible 
of  the  misfortunes  and  sufferings  of  the  lame,  the 
blind,  the  deaf,  and  the  wretched." 60  He  not  only  felt 
these  things  and  relieved  them  with  words,  with  coun- 
sel, and  with  sympathy;  but  he  was  ready  and  active 
with  deeds,  both  in  the  way  of  effort  and  in  the  way  of 
money.  With  the  shrewdness  of  a  Franklin,  he  saw 
the  subjective  as  well  as  the  objective  benefit  of  such 
action.  "My  boys  sometimes  get  discouraged,"  he 
remarked,  "and  I  say  to  them:  'Go  out  and  do  some- 
thing for  somebody.  Go  out  and  give  something  to 
anybody,  if  it's  only  a  pair  of  woolen  stockings  to  a 
poor  old  woman.  It  will  take  you  away  from  your- 
selves and  make  you  happy.'"81  He  was  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  over-careful  in  money  matters.  Certainly 
he  was  not  careless  or  wasteful.  He  knew  that  common 
sense  applies  to  giving  as  to  other  things,  and  he  was 
not  liable  to  the  reproach  implied  in  his  comment  on  a 
fellow-actor:  "It  was  said  of  him  that  he  was  generous 
to  a  fault;  and  I  think  he  must  have  been,  for  he  never 
paid  his  washerwoman."  "  Jefferson  paid  his  own 
washerwoman,  before  he  helped  other  people's. 

In  human  traits  of  a  less  practical  order  he  was  even 
richer.  In  company  he  was  cordial,  gay,  sympathetic, 
amusing.  He  was  an  admirable  story-teller,  acted  his 
narrative  as  well  as  spoke  it,  apologized  for  repeating 
himself,  as  good  story-tellers  too  often  do  not,  but 
made  old  anecdotes  seem  new  by  the  freshness  of  his 
invention  in  detail.  He  was  tolerant  of  the  talk  of 

216 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

others,  even  of  bores,  even  of  impertinent  interviewers, 
and  all  agree  that  he  was  an  excellent  listener.  He  knew 
that  in  our  hurried,  ignorant  world  those  who  listen 
are  those  who  learn. 

In  the  more  intimate  relations  of  life  Jefferson's 
tenderness  was  always  evident.  He  was  twice  married 
and  had  children  by  both  wives  and  his  family  life  was 
full  of  charm.  I  do  not  know  that  this  can  be  better 
illustrated  than  by  his  daughter-in-law's  story  of  his 
once  enlarging  upon  the  hideousness  of  the  old  idea  of 
God  as  jealous  and  angry.  This,  he  said,  violated  all 
the  beauty  of  the  true  relation  between  parent  and 
child.  Whereupon  one  of  his  sons  remarked,  "You 
never  taught  us  to  be  afraid  of  you,  father."  6S  Jeffer- 
son's affection  for  those  who  were  gone  seems  to  have 
had  a  peculiar  tenacity  and  loyalty.  Of  his  elder  half- 
brother,  Charles,  especially,  he  always  spoke  with  such 
vivid  feeling  that  you  felt  that  the  memory  was  a 
clinging  presence  in  his  life. 

His  devotion  to  the  friends  who  were  with  him  in  the 
flesh  was  equally  sincere  and  attractive.  The  relation 
with  the  Clevelands  naturally  commands  the  most 
attention,  and  it  is  as  creditable  to  one  side  as  to  the 
other.  Jefferson  understood  perfectly  his  friend's  great 
position  in  the  world.  He  was  absolutely  indifferent  to 
it,  so  far  as  the  free,  intimate  commerce  of  daily  inter- 
course went;  yet  never  for  one  instant  did  he  presume 
upon  it  for  any  purpose  of  self-exaltation  or  self- 
aggrandizement.  I  do  not  know  where  this  is  more 
delightfully  illustrated  than  in  the  words  of  Gilder,  the 
close  friend  of  both  men,  writing  to  Mrs.  Cleveland: 

217 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

"I  have  just  spent  the  night  at  Joseph  Jefferson's; 
he  was  as  angelic  as  ever,  and  speaks  of  yourself  and 
the  President  always  with  that  refinement  of  praise 
that  honors  the  praised  doubly  —  with  that  deep 
respect  mingled  with  an  affectionate  tone,  free  of 
familiarity,  that  makes  one  feel  like  taking  off  one's 
hat  whenever  he  says  'the  President'  or  Mrs.  'Cleve- 
land.'"64 

The  same  sensibility  that  marks  Jefferson's  human 
relations  shows  in  all  his  enjoyment  of  life.  He  liked 
pleasant  things,  pretty  things.  He  was  moderate  in 
his  eating,  but  he  appreciated  good  food  in  good  com- 
pany. He  liked  to  build  houses  and  fill  them  with  what 
was  charming.  He  was  too  shrewd  to  be  lavish,  too 
shrewd  to  think  that  lavishness  makes  happiness. 
But  he  knew  how  to  select  the  beautiful  with  delicacy 
and  grace.  He  loved  music,  though  here  his  taste  was 
rather  simple,  and  he  quoted  with  relish  "Bill"  Nye's 
remark  about  Wagner,  "My  friend  Wagner's  music  is 
really  much  better  than  it  sounds."65  He  adored 
painting,  studied  it  closely,  and  collected  it  as  exten- 
sively as  his  means  would  allow,  at  times  perhaps  a 
little  more  so.  His  love  for  nature  has  already  appeared 
with  his  painting.  It  was  inexhaustible,  and  one  of  the 
best  things  Winter  ever  said  about  him  was,  "No 
other  actor  has  expressed  in  art,  as  he  did,  the  spirit  of 
humanity  in  intimate  relation  with  the  spirit  of  physi- 
cal nature." 66 

The  sensitive  and  emotional  quality  that  belonged 
to  his  aesthetic  feeling  was  very  evident  in  Jefferson's 
religious  attitude.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  done 

218 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

any  elaborate  or  systematic  thinking  upon  such  sub- 
jects and  he  did  not  trouble  himself  greatly  with  the 
external  formalities  of  religion.  "For  sectarian  creeds 
he  entertained  a  profound  contempt,"  says  Winter, 
"and  upon  clergymen,  as  a  class,  he  looked  with  dis- 
trust and  aversion."  67  But  he  had  an  instinctive  lean- 
ing toward  a  spiritual  view  of  life.  Immortality  was 
not  only  a  theory  with  him,  but  an  actual,  vivid  fact; 
so  that  he  seemed  constantly  to  feel  about  him  the 
presence  of  those  whom  he  had  lost.  In  this  he  re- 
sembled the  Swedenborgians,  to  whose  doctrines  he 
was  favorable,  without  perhaps  knowing  much  about 
them.  He  carried  his  receptiveness  for  spiritual  phe- 
nomena to  the  verge  of  credulity,  at  the  same  time 
always  tingeing  and  correcting  it  with  his  wholesome 
humor  and  irony.  Once  he  came  into  the  company  of 
Cleveland  just  as  some  other  person  present  was  tell- 
ing something  a  little  difficult  for  ordinary  minds  to 
swallow.  "Ah,"  cried  Cleveland,  "tell  that  to  Jeffer- 
son: he'll  believe  anything."  And  Jefferson  answered, 
"Of  course  I  will.  The  world  is  full  of  wonders,  and 
another,  more  or  less,  does  not  surprise  me."  68 

What  is  winning  about  Jefferson's  religion  is  its 
cheerfulness,  serenity,  and  love.  To  be  as  happy  as 
possible  one's  self  and  especially  to  make  others  happy, 
was  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  it,  and  I  do  not  know  that 
it  can  be  improved  upon.  Above  all,  he  was  an  enemy 
to  fear.  He  told  Miss  Shaw  "that  everything  that  was 
detrimental  either  to  the  physical  or  the  spiritual 
health  of  humanity  had  its  origin  in  fear.  And  this  he 
believed  in  casting  out  entirely.  ...  He  told  me  that 

219 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

he  had  labored  for  years  with  this  end  in  view,  believ- 
ing that  the  conquering  of  fear  would  harmonize  his 
character  as  much  as  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do." 69 
Evidently  there  was  some  struggle  about  this,  and 
the  interest  of  Jefferson's  cheerfulness  and  optimism 
lies  largely  in  the  fact  that  they  were  not  a  matter  of 
temperament,  but  a  matter  of  will.  His  was  not  the 
easy-going,  Bohemian  carelessness,  which  takes  for- 
tune and  misfortune  with  equal  indifference.  He  liked 
joy  and  laughter  and  sought  them  and  cultivated  them. 
But  he  was  sensitive  and  capable  of  suffering  intensely. 
There  was  a  strain  of  melancholy  in  him,  all  the  more 
subtle  for  being  controlled.   When  some  one  classed 
him  as  an  optimist,  he  protested :  "No  —  no,  he  is  mis- 
taken, I  am  not  an  optimist.    I  too  often  let  things 
sadden  me."  70  Ugliness  he  hated.  Decay  he  hated. 
"I  cannot  endure  destruction  of  any  kind."  71  Old  age 
he  hated,  never  would  admit  that  he  was  old,  kept  his 
heart  youthful,  at  any  rate.  The  secret  of  life,  he  knew, 
is  looking  forward,  and  he  filled  his  spirit  full  of  the 
things  that  look  forward,  to  this  life  or  another.  Thus 
it  was  that  he  loved  gardens  and  flowers.  "The  saddest 
thing  in  old  age,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Wilson,  "is  the  ab- 
sence of  expectation.  You  no  longer  look  forward  to 
things.   Now  a  garden  is  all  expectation"  —  here  his 
thought  took  the  humorous  turn  so  characteristic  of 
him  —  "and  you  often  get  a  lot  of  things  you  don't 
expect."  Then  he  returned  to  the  serious.  "Therefore 
I  have  become  a  gardener.  My  boy,  when  you  are  past 
seventy,  don't  forget  to  cultivate  a  garden.   It  is  all 
expectation."  71 

220 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

This  delightful  blending  of  laughter  and  pathos,  of 
tenderness  and  irony,  coupled  with  Jefferson's  con- 
stant association  with  the  stage,  makes  one  connect 
him  irresistibly  with  the  clowns  of  Shakespeare. 
Touchstone  and  Feste  and  the  fool  of  Lear  are  not 
fools  in  the  ordinary  sense.  Their  keenness,  their  ap- 
prehension, their  subtlety  are  often,  in  specific  cases, 
much  beyond  those  of  common  mortals.  It  is  simply 
that  they  take  with  seriousness  matters  which  the  chil- 
dren of  this  world  think  trifling  and  see  as  trifles  under 
the  haunting  aspect  of  eternity  those  solemn  passions 
and  efforts  which  grave  human  creatures  regard  as  the 
important  interests  of  life.  With  this  airy,  gracious, 
fantastic  temper  Jefferson  had  always  something  hi 
common,  however  practical  he  might  be  when  a  com- 
pelling occasion  called  for  it.  He  loved  dolls,  and  toy- 
shops, would  spend  hours  in  them,  watching  the  chil- 
dren and  entering  into  their  ecstasy.  He  would  stand 
before  the  windows  and  put  chatter  into  the  dolls' 
mouths.  "Look  at  that  old  fool  taking  up  his  time 
staring  and  laughing  at  us.  I  wonder  if  he  thinks  we 
have  no  feelings."  "Isn't  this  a  sloppy  sort  of  day  for 
dolls?  Not  even  fit  to  look  out  of  the  window!" 
"Hello,  Margery,  who  tore  your  skirt?"  7S  Don't  you 
hear  Touchstone?  Don't  you  hear  Rip  Van  Winkle? 
"At  New  Orleans,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Wilson,  "Eugene 
Field  and  I  ranged  through  the  curiosity  shops,  and 
the  man  would  buy  dolls  and  such  things."  And  Wilson 
told  him  that  "Field  said  he  never  saw  a  man  like 
Jefferson  —  that  his  eye  was  caught  with  all  sorts  of 
gewgaws,  and  that  he  simply  squandered  money  on 

221 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

trifles."  And  Jefferson  chuckled,  "That's  it:  one  half 
the  world  thinks  the  other  half  crazy."  74 

So  the  solution  and  dissolution  of  all  life,  with  its 
passion  and  effort  and  despair  and  hope,  in  quaint  and 
tender  laughter  bring  Jefferson  fully  into  the  company 
of  the  children  of  dream.  Mark  Twain,  with  his  vast 
wandering,  his  quest  of  fortune,  his  touching  of  all 
men's  hands  and  hearts,  was  a  thing  of  dream,  and 
confessed  it.  Emily  Dickinson,  shut  off  in  her  white 
Amherst  solitude,  daughter  of  thoughts  and  flowers, 
was  a  thing  of  dream,  and  knew  it.  With  Jefferson  the 
very  nature  of  stage  life  made  the  dream  even  more 
insistent  and  pervading.  And  on  the  stage  to  act  one 
part,  over  and  over,  till  the  identities  of  actor  and 
acted  were  mingled  inseparably!  And  to  have  that 
part  Rip  Van  Winkle,  a  creature  of  dream,  if  ever 
human  being  was! 

And  Jefferson  himself  recognized  this  flavor  of 
dream  again  and  again.  He  liked  the  strange,  the 
mysterious,  the  mystical,  preferred  to  seek  the  expla- 
nation of  natural  things  in  supernatural  causes.  The 
actor's  glory,  so  immense,  so  all-involving  for  a  mo- 
ment, does  it  not  flit  away  into  oblivion,  like  a  bubble 
or  a  dream?  Trifles  all,  toys  all,  diversions  of  dolls,  and 
fit  for  dolls  to  play  with!  "Is  anything  worth  while?" 
he  said.  "What,  perhaps,  does  the  best  or  worst  any 
of  us  can  do  amount  to  in  this  vast  conglomeration 
of  revolving  worlds?  On  the  other  hand,  is  n't  every- 
thing worth  while?  Is  not  the  smallest  thing  of  im- 
portance?" 75  So  he  mocked  and  meditated,  as  Feste 
might  have  done  in  the  gardens  of  Olivia,  while  Sir 

222 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

Toby  drank,  and  Viola  and  Orsino  caressed  and  kissed. 
He  loved  to  sum  up  his  own  and  all  life  in  a  phrase  of 
Seneca:  "Life  is  like  a  play  upon  the  stage;  it  signifies 
not  how  long  it  lasts,  but  how  well  it  is  acted.  Die  when 
or  where  you  will,  think  only  on  making  a  good  exit."  76 
But  I  am  sure,  if  he  had  known  them,  he  would  have 
preferred  the  magnificent  lines  with  which  Fitzgerald 
ends  his  translation  of  the  great  dream  play  of  Calderon : 

"Such  a  doubt 

Confounds  and  clouds  our  mortal  life  about. 
And,  whether  wake  or  dreaming,  this  I  know, 
How  dream-wise  human  glories  come  and  go; 
Whose  momentary  tenure  not  to  break, 
Walking  as  one  who  knows  he  soon  may  wake, 
So  fairly  carry  the  full  cup,  so  well 
Disordered  insolence  and  passion  quell, 
That  there  be  nothing  after  to  upbraid 
Dreamer  or  doer  in  the  part  he  played, 
Whether  To-morrow's  dawn  shall  break  the  spell, 
Or  the  Last  Trumpet  of  the  eternal  Day, 
When  Dreaming  with  the  Night  shall  pass  away.' 


NOTES 


NOTES 

THE  notes  to  each  chapter  are  preceded  by  a  list  of  the  most 
important  works  referred  to,  with  the  abbreviations  used. 

I:  MARK  TWAIN 

Paine,  Albert  Bigelow,  Mark  Twain;  A  Biography, 
three  volumes,  paged  continuously.  Biography. 

Twain,  Mark,  Letters,  arranged  with  comment  by 
Albert  Bigelow  Paine,  two  volumes,  paged  contin- 
uously. Letters. 

Twain,  Mark,  Works,  Hillcrest  Edition,  twenty-five 
volumes.  (This  edition  is  not  complete,  but  is 
quoted  for  all  writings  contained  in  it.)  Works. 

1.  Letters,  p.  128. 

2.  Letters,  p.  643. 

3.  Biography,  p.  241. 

4.  Biography,  p.  146. 

5.  Biography,  p.  109. 

6.  Works,  vol.  vi,  p.  234. 

7.  Letters,  p.  416. 

8.  Biography,  p.  1328. 

9.  Letters,  p.  734. 

10.  Biography,  p.  1256. 

11.  Biography,  p.  773. 

12.  Letters,  p.  543. 

13.  Works,  vol.  v,  p.  119. 

14.  Mark  Twain,  Autobiography,  in  North  American  Review, 

vol.  CLXXXV,  p.  121. 

15.  W.  D.  Howells,  My  Mark  Twain,  p.  178. 

16.  Biography,  p.  844. 

17.  Mark  Twain,  Autobiography,  in  North  American  Review. 

vol.  CLXXXV,  p.  5. 

18.  Biography,  p.  1366. 

19.  Works,  vol.  xm,  p.  279. 

20.  Mark  Twain,  What  is  Man  and  Other  Essays,  p.  75. 

21.  Letters,  p.  337. 

.  227 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

22.  Biography,  p.  1451. 

23.  Letters,  p.  527. 

24.  Mark  Twain,  Autobiography,  in  North  American  Review, 

vol.  CLXXXIII,  p.  457. 

25.  Letters,  p.  528. 

26.  Mark  Twain,  Speeches,  p.  32. 

27.  Mark  Twain,  Autobiography,  in  North  American  Review, 

vol.  CLXXXIII,  p.  583. 

28.  Mark  Twain,  The  Mysterious  Stranger,  p.  150. 

29.  Biography,  p.  1292. 

/ 
II:  HENRY  ADAMS 

Adams,  Henry,  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams; 

An  Autobiography.  Education. 

Adams,  Henry,  Mont-Saint-Michel  and  Chartres.  Saint-Michel. 

1.  Education,  p.  314. 

2.  Education,  p.  68. 

3.  Education,  p.  9. 

4.  Education,  p.  34. 

5.  Education,  p.  64. 

6.  Education,  p.  59. 

7.  Education,  p.  66. 

8.  Education,  p.  56. 

9.  Education,  p.  65. 

10.  Education,  p.  70. 

11.  Education,  p.  76. 

12.  Education,  p.  77. 

13.  Education,  p.  78. 

14.  Education,  p.  79. 

15.  Education,  p.  75. 

16.  Education,  p.  81. 

17.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  Ear/y  Memories,  p.  186. 

18.  Education,  p.  300. 

19.  JWd. 

20.  Education,  p.  307. 

21.  William  Roscoe  Thayer,  T/ze  Ltfe  and  Liters  of  John 

Hay,  vol.  n,  p.  55. 

22.  William  Roscoe  Thayer,   The  Life  and  Letters  of  John 

Hay,  vol.  n,  p.  61. 

228 


NOTES 

23.  Education,  p.  105. 

24.  Education,  p.  118. 

25.  Ibid. 

26.  Education,  p.  307. 

27.  Education,  p.  85. 

28.  Education,  p.  353. 

29.  Saint-Michel,  p.  198. 

30.  Education,  p.  443. 

31.  Education,  p.  106. 

32.  Education,  p.  108. 

33.  Henry  Adams,  Letters  to  a  Niece,  p.  4. 

34.  Henry  Adams,  Letters  to  a  Niecet  p.  16. 

35.  Education,  p.  170. 

36.  Education,  p.  175. 

37.  Preface  to  A  Letter  to  American  Teachers  of  History,  in 

The  Degradation  of  the  Democratic  Dogma,  p.  138. 

38.  Education,  p.  394. 

39.  Education,  p.  90. 

40.  Ibid. 

41.  Education,  p.  285. 

42.  Education,  p.  351. 

43.  Education,  p.  413. 

44.  Education,  p.  357. 

45.  Education,  p.  420. 

46.  Education,  p.  220. 

47.  Saint-Michel,  p.  213. 

48.  Saint-Michel,  p.  178. 

49.  Education,  p.  232. 

50.  Education,  p.  68. 

51.  Education,  p.  255. 

52.  Education,  p.  369.  ' 

53.  Saint-Michel,  p.  9. 

54.  Education,  p.  81. 

55.  Letters  to  a  Niece,  p.  18. 

56.  Saint-Michel,  p.  166. 

57.  Education,  p.  352. 

58.  Education,  p.  424. 

59.  Education,  p.  381. 

60.  Saint-Michel,  p.  111. 

61.  Education,  p.  95. 

229 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

62.  Education,  p.  441. 

63.  Beth  Bradford  Gilchrist,  The  Life  of  Mary  Lyon,  p.  198. 

Ill:  SIDNEY  LANIER 

.Lanier,  Sidney,  Letters.  Letters. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  Poems  (edition  1900).  Poems. 

Mims,  Edwin,  Sidney  Lanier.  Mims. 

1.  Letters,  p.  14  (condensed). 

2.  Letters,  p.  114. 

3.  Mims,  p.  153. 

4.  To  Northrupp,  June  11,  1866,  in  Lippincott's  Magazine, 

vol.  LXXV,  p.  307. 

5.  Mims,  p.  5. 

6.  Mims,  p.  321. 

7.  Letters,  p.  51. 

8.  The  Letters  of  Thomas  Gray  (ed.  Tovey),  vol.  i,  p.  150. 

9.  Letters,  p.  132. 

10.  Mims,  p.  157. 

11.  Mims,  p.  91. 

12.  Letters,  p.  46. 

13.  Ibid. 

14.  Mims,  p.  321. 

15.  Mims,  p.  125. 

16.  Poems,  p.  xxii. 

17.  To  Northrupp,  July  28,  1866,  in  Lippincott's  Magazine, 

vol.  LXXV,  p.  310. 

18.  Letters,  p.  79. 

19.  Letters,  p.  73. 

20.  Mims,  p.  39. 

21.  Mims,  p.  303. 

22.  Mims,  p.  31. 

23.  Letters,  p.  103. 

24.  Ibid. 

25.  Sidney  Lanier,  Poem  Outlines,  p.  18. 

26.  Mims,  p.  96. 

27.  Letters,  p.  154. 

28.  Letters,  p.  77. 

29.  Sidney  Lanier,  Retrospects  and  Prospects,  p.  5. 
^30.  Poems,  p.  143. 

230 


NOTES 

31.  Sidney  Lanier,  Poem  Outlines,  p.  104. 

32.  Letters,  p.  168. 

33.  Letters,  p.  194. 

34.  Letters,  p.  13. 

35.  Letters,  p.  226. 

36.  Letters,  p.  50. 

37.  Mims,  p.  6. 

38.  Letters,  p.  107. 

39.  Mims,  p.  310. 

40.  Letters,  p.  184. 

41.  Mims,  p.  35. 

42.  Letters,  p.  171. 

43.  Mims,  p.  66. 

44.  Letters,  p.  71. 

45.  Letters,  p.  84. 

46.  Letters,  p.  133. 

47.  Mims,  p.  308. 

48.  Letters,  p.  224. 

49.  Letters,  p.  106. 

50.  Ibid. 

51.  Letters,  p.  109. 

52.  Letters,  p.  68. 

53.  Mims,  p.  330. 

54.  Mims,  p.  145. 

55.  Letters,  p.  66. 

56.  Letters,  p.  238. 

57.  Poems,  p.  31. 

58.  Letters,  p.  78. 

59.  Poems,  p.  246. 

IV:  JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 

Menpes,  Mortimer,  Whistler  as  I  Knew  Him.  Menpes. 

Pennell,  E.  R.  and  J.,  The  Life  of  James  McNeill 

Whistler,  sixth  edition,  revised.  Pennell. 

Seitz,  Don  Carlos,  Whistler  Stories.  Seitz. 

Whistler,  James  McNeill,  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making 

Enemies.  Gentle  ArL 

1.  Seitz,  p.  27. 

2.  Seitz,  p.  70. 

231 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

3.  Menpes,  p.  63. 

4.  Pennell,  p.  358. 

5.  Pennell,  p.  412. 

6.  Gentle  Art,  p.  29. 

7.  Pennell,  p.  404. 

8.  Pennell,  p.  138. 

9.  Frederick  Keppel,  One  Day  with  Whistler,  p.  8. 

10.  Menpes,  p.  8. 

11.  Pennell,  p.  323. 

12.  Menpes,  p.  7. 

13.  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton,  Heretics,  p.  244. 

14.  Menpes,  p.  140. 

15.  Menpes,  p.  43. 

16.  Menpes,  p.  38. 

17.  Pennell,  p.  343. 

18.  Otto  H.  Bacher,  With  Whistler  in  Venice,  p.  157. 

19.  Chris  Healy,  Confessions  of  a  Journalist,  p.  203. 

20.  Pennell,  p.  237. 

21.  Trilby,  in  Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  vol.  LXXXVIII, 

p.  577. 

22.  Pennell,  p.  211. 

23.  Menpes,  p.  132. 

24.  Pennell,  p.  366. 

25.  Seitz,  p.  73. 

26.  John  C.  Van  Dyke,  American  Painting  and  Its  Tradition, 

p.  173. 

27.  Alexander  Harrison  quoted  by  Frank  Harris,  Contempo- 

rary Portraits,  p.  80. 

28.  Pennell,  p.  105. 

29.  Menpes,  p.  37. 

30.  Pennell,  p.  205.  So  in  first  edition,  somewhat  altered  in 

sixth. 

31.  Menpes,  p.  10. 

32.  Menpes,  p.  33. 

33.  Pennell,  p.  104. 

34.  Pennell,  p.  119. 

35.  Pennell,  p.  323. 

36.  Menpes,  p.  117. 

37.  John  C.  Van  Dyke,  American  Painting  and  Its  Tradition, 

p,  173. 

232 


NOTES 

38.  Seitz,  p.  33. 

39.  Seitz,  p.  45. 

40.  Gentle  Art,  p.  115. 

41.  Pennell,  p.  409. 

42.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Speech  at  Opening  of  Whistler  Me- 

morial Exhibition,  p.  10. 

43.  Menpes,  p.  10. 

44.  Pennell,  p.  285. 

45.  Pennell,  p.  422. 

46.  Pennell,  p.  300. 

47.  Pennell,  p.  277. 

48.  T.  Martin  Wood,  Whistler,  p.  20. 

49.  Pennell,  p.  117. 

50.  J.  K.  Huysmans,  Certains,  p.  69. 

51.  Pennell,  p.  222. 

52.  Seitz,  p.  119. 

53.  Pennell,  p.  284. 

54.  Pennell,  p.  402. 

55.  Seitz,  p.  120. 

V:  JAMES  GILLESPIE  ELAINE 

Elaine,  Mrs.  James  G.,  Letters,  edited  by  Harriet 

S.  Elaine  Beale,  two  volumes.  Mrs.  Elaine. 

Conwell,  R.  H.,  The  Life  and  Public  Services  of 
James  G.  Elaine.  Conwell. 

Hamilton,  Gail,  Biography  of  James  G.  Elaine.      Hamilton. 

Stanwood,  Edward,  James  Gillespie  Elaine.  Stanwood. 

The  letters  to  Warren  Fisher,  Jr.,  are  printed  in  full 
in  Mr.  Elaine's  Record :  The  Investigation  of  1876 
and  The  Mulligan  Letters,  Published  by  the  Com- 
mittee of  One  Hundred.  (Boston.) 

1.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  214. 

2.  Hamilton,  p.  492. 

3.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  218. 

4.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  136. 

5.  Hamilton,  p.  469. 

6.  Hamilton,  p.  301. 

7.  Conwell,  p.  392. 

8.  Conwell,  p.  89. 

233 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

9.  Hamilton,  p.  620. 

10.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  303. 

11.  Hamilton,  p.  532. 

12.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  36. 

13.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  121. 

14.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  135. 

15.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  183. 

16.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  185.  Sentences  transposed. 

17.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  220. 

18.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  131. 

19.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  16. 

20.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  191. 

21.  Hamilton,  p.  455. 

22.  Hamilton,  p.  225. 

23.  Hamilton,  p.  245. 

24.  Hamilton,  p.  467. 

25.  Hamilton,  p.  300. 

26.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  185. 
27  Hamilton,  p.  536. 

28.  George  F.  Hoar,  Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  i, 

p.  378. 

29.  Andrew  Dickson  White,  Autobiography,  vol.  i,  p.  214. 

30  George  F.  Hoar,  Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  I, 

p.  200. 

31  Hamilton,  p.  707. 

32  Stanwood,  p.  109. 

33.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States  from 

Hayes  to  McKinley,  p.  321. 

34.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  292. 

35.  Conwell,  p.  67. 

36.  Conwell,  p.  86. 

37.  Hamilton,  p.  436. 

38.  A  neighbor  of  Elaine's,  in  Conwell,  p.  87. 

39.  Hamilton,  p.  107. 

40.  Hamilton,  p.  581. 

41.  Hamilton,  p.  147. 

42.  George  F.  Hoar,  Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  i, 

p.  200. 

43.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  137. 

44.  Stanwood,  p.  361. 

234 


NOTES 

45.  Hamilton,  p.  633. 

46.  Note  in  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  13. 

47.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  277. 

48.  Hamilton,  p.  477. 

49.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  I,  p.  72. 

50.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  i,  p.  159. 

51.  To  Fisher,  October  1,  1871. 

52.  To  Fisher,  August  9,  1872. 
I   53.  To  Fisher,  October  4,  1869. 

54.  To  Fisher,  June  29,  1869. 

55.  Fisher  to  Elaine,  April  16,  1872. 

56.  Stanwood,  p.  162. 

57.  Enclosure  in  Elaine  to  Fisher,  April  16,  1876. 

58.  Speech  of  April  24,  1876.  In  Congressional  Record,  Forty 

Fourth  Congress,  1st  Session,  vol.  iv,  part  3,  p.  2725. 

59.  Hamilton,  p.  395. 

60.  James  Russell  Lowell,  Letters,  vol.  u,  p.  170. 

61.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States  from  the 

Compromise  of  1850,  vol.  vn,  p.  205. 

62.  George  F.  Hoar,  Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  i, 

p.  281. 

63.  Hamilton,  p.  432. 

64.  Congressional  Record,  June  5,  1876,  Forty-Fourth  Con- 

gress, 1st  Session,  vol.  iv,  part  4,  p.  3606. 

65.  Hamilton,  p.  424. 

66.  Hamilton,  p.  536. 

67.  Stanwood,  p.  342. 

68.  James  G.  Elaine,  Political  Discussions,  p.  465. 

69.  Mrs.  Elaine,  vol.  n,  p.  120.  For  a  curious  discussion  of  the 

attitude  of  Mrs.  Elaine  toward  the  possibility  of  her 
husband's  nomination  in  a  later  campaign  see  These 
Shifting  Scenes,  by  Charles  Edward  Russell,  chapter  vn. 

VI:  GROVER  CLEVELAND 

Black,  Chauncey  F.,  The  Lives  of  Grover  Cleve- 
land and  Thomas  A.  Hendricks.  Black. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  Fishing  and  Shooting 

Sketches.  Fishing  Sketches. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  The  Writings  and  Speeches 

235 


AMERICAN.  PORTRAITS 

of  Grover  Cleveland,  Selected  and  edited  by 

George  F.  Parker.  Writings. 

Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  Grover  Cleveland;  A 
Record  of  Friendship.  Gilder. 

Parker,  George  F.,  Recollections  of  Grover  Cleve- 
land. Parker. 

West,  Andrew  F.,  article  in  Century,  volume 
LXXVII,  January,  1909,  Grover  Cleveland:  A 
Princeton  Memory.  West. 

Williams,  Jesse  Lynch  Williams,  Mr.  Cleve- 
land, A  Personal  Impression.  Williams. 

1.  Henry  Watterson,  "Morse  Henry,"  an  Autobiography,  vol. 

ii,  p.  118. 

2.  Writings,  p.  338. 

3.  Parker,  p.  391. 

4.  Black,  p.  43. 

5.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  45. 

6.  Gilder,  p.  171. 

7.  West,  p.  328. 

8.  West,  p.  326. 

9.  Black,  p.  63. 

10.  Parker,  p.  382. 

11.  Gilder,  p.  48. 

12.  Gilder,  p.  249. 

13.  Williams,  pp.  24,  25. 

14.  West,  p.  336. 

15.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  53. 

16.  James  Russell  Lowell,  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  326. 

17.  Gilder,  p.  192. 

18.  Parker,  p.  377. 

19.  Williams,  p.  61. 

20.  Speech  to  Grover  Cleveland  Association  in  New  York, 

March   18,    1919,   in   Boston    Transcript,   March    19, 
1919. 

21.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  13. 

22.  James  Shirley,  The  Bird  in  a  Cage,  act  iv,  scene  1. 

23.  For  this  story  I  am  indebted  to  my  wife,  who  observed 

the  incident. 

24.  Gilder,  p.  47. 

236 


NOTES 

25.  Frederick  E.  Goodrich,  The  Life  and  Public  Services  of 

Grover  Cleveland,  p.  74. 

26.  Ibid. 

27.  Gilder,  p.  259. 

28.  Writings,  p.  534. 

29.  Leonard  Wood,  in  Speech  to  Grover  Cleveland  Associa- 

tion in  New  York,  March   18,  1919,  in  Boston  Tran- 
script, March  19,  1919. 

30.  Williams,  p.  11. 

31.  Writings,  p.  212. 

32.  James  D.  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presi- 

dents, vol.  vin,  p.  450. 

33.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  28. 

34.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  30. 

35.  Gilder,  p.  36. 

36.  Williams,  p.  31. 

37.  Gilder,  p.  30. 

38.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  106. 

39.  Gilder,  p.  49. 

40.  James  Russell  Lowell,  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  344. 

41.  Black,  p.  61. 

42.  Gilder,  p.  169. 

43.  Parker,  p.  35. 

44.  Parker,  p.  341. 

45.  Writings,  p.  264. 

46.  Parker,  p.  210. 

47.  Parker,  p.  335. 

48.  Messages  from  the  Governors  of  the  State  of  New  York,  ed- 

ited by  Charles  Z.  Lincoln,  vol.  vn,  p.  873. 

49.  Gilder,  p.  30. 

50.  See  Life  of  General  E.  S.  Bragg,  supposedly  supplied  by 

himself,  in  Who 's  Who  in  America  for  1902. 

51.  Henry  Watterson,  "Marse  Henry,"  an  Autobiography,  vol. 

n,  p.  144. 

52.  Henry  Adams,  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams,  p.  320. 

53.  To  E.  P.  Wheeler,  printed  in  Sixty  Years  of  American 

Life,  by  Everett  P.  Wheeler,  p.  250. 

54.  For  the  history  of  this  expression  as  finally  shaped  by 

Colonel  Lament  see  Parker,  pp.  43,  44. 

55.  Gail  Hamilton,  Biography  of  James  G.  Elaine,  p.  515. 

237 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

56.  Writings,  p.  86. 

57.  Fishing  Sketches,  p.  87. 

58.  Parker,  p.  349. 

59.  Parker,  p.  105. 

60.  James  D.  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Pres- 

idents, vol.  vin,  p.  iv. 

61.  Gilder,  p.  191. 

62.  West,  p.  336. 

63.  Gilder,  p.  190. 

64.  Gilder,  p.  179. 

65.  Gilder,  p.  270. 

VII:  HENRY  JAMES 

James,  Henry,  Letters,  Selected  and  edited  by 

Percy  Lubbock,  two  volumes.  Letters. 

James,  Henry,  The  Novels  and  Tales  of  Henry 
James,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  twenty-six 
volumes.  (This  edition,  with  prefaces  and 
extensive  revision  by  the  author,  does  not 
comprise  all  of  James's  works,  but  is  quoted 
for  all  writings  contained  in  it.)  Works. 

James,  Henry,  Notes  of  a  Son  and  Brother.     Son  and  Brother. 

James,  Henry,  A  Small  Boy  and  Others.          Small  Boy. 

1.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  165. 

2.  Henry  James,  The  Art  of  Fiction  (printed  with  an  essay 

by  Walter  Besant  on  the  same  subject),  p.  66.    Also  in 
Partial  Portraits,  by  Henry  James,  p.  390. 

3.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  489. 

4.  Works,  vol.  xxiv,  p.  349. 

5.  Works,  vol.  xxi,  p.  xxi. 

6.  Works,  vol.  xn,  p.  ix. 

7.  Small  Boy,  p.  263. 

8.  Works,  vol.  v,  p.  viii. 

9.  Irish  Essays  (edition  1882),  p.  v. 

10.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  347. 

11.  Works,  vol.  ix,  p.  v. 

12.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  289. 

13.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  490. 

14.  Works,  vol.  ix,  p.  303. 

238 


NOTES 

15.  Works,  vol.  xvin,  p.  422. 

16.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  119. 

17.  Works,  vol.  xxi,  p.  v. 

18.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  323. 

19.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  9. 

20.  William  James,  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  41. 

21.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  11. 

22.  Theodora  Bosanquet,  in  Yale  Review,  vol.  x,  p.  156. 

23.  Letters,  vol.  I,  p.  310. 

24.  Letters,  vol.  I,  p.  309. 

25.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  101. 

26.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  115. 

27.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  337. 

28.  Henry  James,  French  Poets  and  Novelists  (English  edition, 

1878),  p.  109. 

29.  Ibid. 

30.  Henrv  James,  The  American  Scene  (American  edition, 

1907),  p.  367. 

31.  Henry  James,  French  Poets  and  Novelists,  p.  175. 

32.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  379. 

33.  Lawrence  Pearsall  Jacks,  Life  and  Letters  of  Stopford 

Brooke,  vol.  n,  p.  672. 

34.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  348.    A  correspondent  writes  me  that 

James's  brother  Wilkie,  commenting  upon  Henry's  im- 
perfect knowledge  of  women,  declared  that  he  "  had  never 
been  in  love,  and  lacked  the  insight  which  that  experience 
gave  to  a  man."  Such  a  general  negative  as  this  is  some- 
what difficult  to  accept,  but  it  is  exceedingly  suggestive. 

35.  Son  and  Brother,  p.  324. 

36.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  183. 

37.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  104. 

38.  Works,  vol.  xv,  p.  22. 

39.  Works,  vol.  v,  p.  xxi. 

40.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  198. 

41.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  102. 

42.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  68. 

43.  Works,  vol.  ix,  p.  xxiii. 

44.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  103. 

45.  Works,  vol.  x,  p.  x. 

46.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  409. 

239 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

47.  Works,  vol.  x,  p.  xi. 

48.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  180. 

49.  Letters,  vol.  I,  p.  173. 

50.  Letters,  vol.  I,  p.  182. 

51.  Henry  James,  French  Poets  and  Novelists,  p.  400. 

52.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  485. 

VIII:  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON 

Jefferson,  Eugenie  Paul,  Intimate  Recollections 

of  Joseph  Jefferson.  Mrs.  Jefferson. 

Jefferson,  Joseph,  The  Autobiography  of  Joseph 

Jefferson.  A  utobiography. 

Wilson,  Francis,  Joseph  Jefferson.  Wilson. 

Winter,  William,  Life  and  Art  of  Joseph  Jeffer- 
son. Winter,  Life. 

Winter,  William,  Other  Days.  Other  Days. 

1.  Winter,  Life,  p.  136. 

2.  Autobiography,  p.  115. 

3.  Winter,  Life,  p.  15. 

4.  Other  Days,  p.  88. 

5.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  p.  204. 

6.  Henry  Watterson,  "Morse  Henry,'9  An  Autobiography, 

vol.  n,  p.  183. 

7.  Winter,  Life,  p.  168. 

8.  William  Winter,  Life  and  Art  of  Edwin  Booth  (edition, 

1894),  p.  107. 

9.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXIII,  p.  736. 

10.  Wilson,  p.  330. 

11.  Autobiography,  p.  439. 

12.  Wilson,  p.  28. 

13.  Autobiography,  p.  23. 

14.  Autobiography,  p.  101. 

15.  Autobiography,  p.  303. 

16.  Other  Days,  p.  81. 

17.  Autobiography,  p.  118. 

18.  Autobiography,  p.  101. 

19.  Autobiography,  p.  340. 

20.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXIII,  p.  731. 

240 


NOTES 

21.  Henry  Watterson,  "Morse  Henry"  An  Autobiography, 

vol.  n,  p.  185. 

22.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXV,  p.  382. 

23.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXIII,  p.  732. 

24.  Autobiography,  p.  402. 

25.  Winter,  Life,  p.  195. 

26.  Other  Days,  p.  86. 

27.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXIII,  p.  735. 

28.  Autobiography,  p.  222. 

29.  Wilson,  p.  172. 

30.  Autobiography,  p.  132. 

31.  Autobiography,  p.  303. 

32.  Wilson,  p.  128. 

33.  Autobiography,  p.  115. 

34.  Wilson,  p.  11. 

35.  Wilson,  p.  8. 

36.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXIII,  p.  736. 

37.  Rip  Van  Winkle  as  Played  by  Joseph  Jefferson,  p.  171. 

38.  Wilson,  p.  68. 

39.  Autobiography,  p.  158. 

40.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  p.  169.  From  an  interview  reported  in  the 

New  York  Herald. 

41.  Ibid. 

42.  Autobiography,  pp.  224-229  and  302-310. 

43.  Other  Days,  p.  75. 

44.  Wilson,  p.  25. 

45.  Autobiography,  p.  116. 

46.  Autobiography,  p.  81. 

47.  Henry   Watterson,  "Morse  Henry,"  An  Autobiography, 

vol.  n,  p.  173. 

48.  Wilson,  p.  59. 

49.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  p.  66. 

50.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  p.  70. 

51.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXIII,  p.  735. 

52.  Wilson,  p.  66. 

53.  Autobiography,  p.  348. 

54.  Wilson,  p.  84. 

55.  Wilson,  p.  307,  slightly  abbreviated. 

56.  Eugenie  Paul  Jefferson,  in  Outing,  vol.  LIII,  p.  739. 

57.  Wilson,  p.  306. 

241 


AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

58.  Ibid. 

59.  Other  Days,  p.  86. 

60.  Other  Days,  p.  87. 

61.  Wilson,  epigraph  of  book. 

62.  Autobiography,  p.  216. 

63.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  p.  216. 

64.  Richard  Watson  Gilder,  Letters,  p.  162. 

65.  Wilson,  p.  214. 

66.  Other  Days,  p.  78. 

67.  Other  Days,  p.  86. 

68.  Other  Days,  p.  78. 

69.  Mary  Shaw,  in  Century,  vol.  LXXXV,  p.  381. 

70.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  p.  211. 

71.  Autobiography,  p.  381. 

72.  Wilson,  p.  341. 

73.  Wilson,  p.  13. 

74.  Wilson,  p.  244. 

75.  Wilson,  p.  321. 

76.  Autobiography,  p.  474. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adams,  Henry,  69,  71,  112,  154; 
Chronology,  30;  never  educated, 
31, 32 ;  his  idea  of  the  object  of  ed- 
ucation, 31;  his  definition  of  a 
teacher,  32,  33;  a  student  at  Har- 
vard, 33;  in  Germany,  34,  35;  a 
teacher  at  Harvard,  35,  36;  his 
salon  in  Washington,  37;  his  gen- 
eral human  relations,  37,  38;  fared 
better  with  women  than  with  men, 
38,  39;  his  friendships,  39,  40;  his 
marriage,  40;  in  London  during 
the  Civil  War,  41,  42;  his  political 
experience  in  America,  42,  43;  a 
true  conservative,  42,  44;  his  view 
of  the  workings  of  American  gov- 
ernment, 43;  traveled  extensively, 
43-45;  gained  little  from  art,  45, 
46,  53;  Mont- Saint- Michel  and 
Chartres,  46;  his  interest  in  Dar- 
winism, 47, 48,  50;  lacked  lucidity, 
48-50;  his  theory  of  acceleration, 
49;  a  Darwinian  for  fun,  50;  as  an 
author,  51,  53;  lacked  seriousness, 
51;  had  little  enthusiasm,  52,  53; 
his  attitude  toward  religion,  54; 
inherited  too  much  egotism,  54, 
55;  mistrusted  simplicity,  56; 
needed  to  be  de-educated,  56;  on 
Presidents  Harrison  and  Cleve- 
land, 164. 

Aldrich,  Nelson  W.,  I2O. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  177. 

Bacher,  Otto  H.,  on  Whistler,  93. 

Balzac,  Honore,  176,  185. 

Barker,  Dr.,  119. 

Birrell,  Augustine,  on  Mark  Twain, 
23,  24. 

Blaine,  Emmons,  120. 

Blaine,  James  Gillespie,  167;  Chro- 
nology, 114;  as  seen  by  his  wife, 


115,  116,  119-21;  his  whole  life 
political,  116;  intensely  active 
intellectually,  116,  117;  a  master 
of  words,  117,  135;  his  religion, 
118;  cared  little  for  art,  118,  119; 
his  sensibility  profound,  119;  mor- 
bid about  his  health,  119,  120; 
devoted  to  his  wife  and  children, 
121-23;  his  social  qualities,  123, 
124;  a  consummate  politician, 
124,  128;  his  personal  charm,  125; 
his  remarkable  memory,  126,  127; 
a  magnetic  man,  127;  a  natural 
leader,  127,  128;  his  statesman- 
ship, 128-30;  his  financial  career, 
130-38;  congressional  investiga- 
tion, 134,  135;  his  fundamental 
error,  137;  his  ambition  for  the 
presidency,  138-40. 

Blaine,  Mrs.  J.  G.,  her  letters  quoted, 
115,  116,  117,  118,  120,  121,  123, 
128,  130,  131,  140. 

Bosanquet,  Miss,  Henry  James's  sec- 
retary, 183,  184. 

Boston,  solved  the  universe,  33. 

Boucicault,  Dion,  211. 

Bourget,  Paul,  179. 

Bragg,  Gen.  E.  S.,  164. 

Browning,  Robert,  179. 

Burchard,  Rev.  Samuel  D.,  139. 

Burlingame,  Anson,  127. 

Burton,  Lady,  and  Whistler,  90. 

Calderon,  Pedro,  223. 

Carlisle,  John  G.,  170. 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  Whistler  com- 
pared to,  94. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  126. 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  on  Whistler,  94, 
97,  101. 

Cibber,  Colley,  a  saying  of  Dr.  John- 
son about,  99. 


245 


INDEX 


Clemens,  Samuel  Langhorne,  see 
Twain,  Mark. 

Cleveland,  Stephen  Grover,  Chro- 
nology, 144;  his  early  life,  145, 148, 
150;  earnestly  devoted  to  his  task, 
146 ;  nominated  for  the  presidency, 
147;  lacking  in  cultivation,  148; 
his  manner  of  writing,  149;  his 
spiritual  and  religious  attitude, 
150,  151,  169;  indifferent  to  art, 
151;  an  ardent  fisherman  and 
hunter,  152,  153;  loved  children, 
I53»  I54»  Fishing  and  Shooting 
Sketches,  quoted.  154,  158;  simple 
and  frugal,  154,  155;  very  gener- 
ous, 155;  his  friendship  and  per- 
sonal affection,  156,  157;  his  hu- 
mor, 157,  158,  160;  unpopular, 
159;  had  great  public  merits,  160; 
thoroughly  democratic,  160,  161; 
his  speeches,  161;  had  superb 
physical  strength,  162;  an  intense 
party  man,  162,  163;  his  enemies, 
164;  what  he  stands  for  in  Ameri- 
can history,  165-70;  essentially  a 
conservative,  166;  his  Presidential 
Problems,  167;  the  strong  features 
of  his  character,  167,  168;  his  use 
of  the  veto  power,  168,  169;  his 
passionate  Americanism,  169, 170; 
on  Joseph  Jefferson,  200 ;  friendship 
with  Jefferson,  213,  215,  217,  219. 

Cleveland,  Mrs.  Grover,  115,  155, 
217,  218. 

Committee  of  One  Hundred,  on 
Elaine,  136. 

Corot,  Jean  Baptiste,  215. 

Cowper,  William,  quoted,  III. 

Delane,  John  T.,  and  Henry  Adams, 
41,  42. 

Democratic  party,  principles  of,  166. 

Dickinson,  Emily,  222. 

Dream,  the  element  of,  in  Mark 
Twain,  7,  9-11,  13;  in  Joseph  Jef- 
ferson, 222;  in  Emily  Dickinson, 
222. 

Du  Maurier,  George,  97. 


Eden,  Sir  William,  and  Whistler, 

95,  98. 

Elkins,  Stephen  B.,  140. 

Farnsworth,  General,  147. 

Field,  Eugene,  and  Joseph  Jefferson, 

221. 

Finn,  Huck,  15,  16. 
Fisher,  Warren,  Jr.,  and  J.  G.  Blaine, 

132-34,  138,  139. 
Fitzgerald,  Edward,  quoted,  223. 
Flaubert,  Gustave,  78,  81. 
Fletcher,  Phineas,  quoted,  78. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  20. 
Friends,  born,  not  made,  39. 

Garfield,  President  James  A.,  167; 

Elaine's  eulogy  on,  117,  119. 
Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  56. 
Gautier,  Theophile,  112. 
Gay,  Walter,  on  Whistler  at  work, 

103. 
Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,  The, 

96,  99,  100. 

German  teaching,  Henry  Adams's 
opinion  of,  35. 

Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  156,  217. 

God,  Mark  Twain's  idea  of,  25,  26; 
his  place  in  the  education  of 
Henry  Adams,  54;  Whistler's  feel- 
ing about,  90. 

Gray,  Thomas,  on  money,  63,  64. 

Haden,  Sir  Seymour,  95,  96. 
Harrison,  President  Benjamin,  164. 
Harvard  College,  "a  good  school," 

33;  education  at,  36,  38. 
Hay,  John,  and  Henry  Adams,  39; 

on  Blaine,  125. 
Heine,  Heinrich,  95. 
Hiscock,  Frank,  120. 
History  of  the  United  States,  Henry 

Adams's,  51. 
Hoar,  Senator  George  F.,  on  Blaine, 

117,  124,  128,  130,  137. 
Howells,    William    Dean,    182;   on 

Mark  Twain,  14. 
Huysmans,  J.  K.,  on  Whistler,  108. 


246 


INDEX 


Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  17. 
Innocents  Abroad,  The,  3. 

James,  Henry,  Chronology,  172; 
sincere  in  life  and  art,  173,  187;  a 
tireless  observer,  174;  cared  more 
for  expression  than  for  the  thing 
expressed,  174,  175;  puzzled  by 
America,  176,  177;  indifferent  to 
fact,  177,  178;  strains  and  forces 
words,  179,  1 80;  had  little  life 
apart  from  his  art,  181-84,  189; 
his  spiritual  attitude,  184,  185; 
his  conversation,  186,  187;  his 
strong  human  affection,  187-89; 
passionately  interested  in  the 
Great  War,  189;  his  real  existence, 
in  his  art,  189-92;  not  a  popular 
novelist,  192,  194;  as  a  dramatist, 
192-94;  not  embittered  by  neglect 
or  criticism,  194,  195;  generous 
toward  his  fellow-writers,  195, 
196. 

James,  William,  182. 

Jefferson,  Joseph,  156;  Chronology, 
198;  came  of  a  theatrical  family, 
199;  kept  his  own  nature  high  and 
pure,  200,  20 1 ;  a  friend  of  Grover 
Cleveland,  200,  213,  215,  217, 
219;  had  definite  views  about  his 
art,  20 1 ;  gave  careful  attention  to 
the  audience,  201,  202;  had  keen 
sensibilities,  202;  a  good  finan- 
cier, 203,  216;  enjoyed  practical 
jokes,  203,  204;  his  relations  with 
fellow-actors,  203-06;  accused  of 
wanting  all  the  stage,  206;  had 
an  immense  ambition,  207;  knew 
both  failure  and  success,  208;  his 
triumph,  209-1 1 ;  Rip  Van  Winkle, 
2 1 1 ;  his  Autobiography,  2 12 ;  his  ac- 
quaintance with  books,  213;  fond 
of  sport,  213;  an  ardent  painter, 
214,  215;  wisely  generous,  216; 
an  admirable  story-teller,  216;  his 
family  life,  217;  devoted  to  his 
friends,  217;  his  religious  attitude, 
218-20;  knew  the  secret  of  life, 


220;  loved  dolls,  221;  was  a  child 
of  dream,  222. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  on  Colley 
Cibber,  99;  on  flattery,  209. 

Keats,  John,  78,  80,  112. 

Keppel,    Frederick,    and    Whistler 

92. 
King,  Clarence,  and  Henry  Adams, 

39- 

La  Farge,  Mrs.  Mabel,  40. 

Lamb,  Charles,  158. 

Lament,  Col.  Daniel  S.,  147. 

Lang,  Andrew,  and  Mark  Twain, 
21,  22. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  112;  Chronology,  60; 
lived  in  a  spiritual  whirlwind,  61; 
his  military  experiences,  61,  62;  a 
tuberculous  invalid,  62,  63;  im- 
poverished by  the  war,  63,  64;  his 
love  of  poetry  and  music,  64,  65, 
72>  75>  76;  craved  recognition,  66, 
67,  77;  full  of  ardor,  68,  69;  his 
critical  writings,  69,  70;  his  hours 
of  peace,  71,  72;  loved  a  good 
horse,  73 ;  loved  the  repose  of  Na- 
ture, 73;  his  humor,  74;  could  not 
stay  angry,  75;  his  affection  for 
his  wife  and  children,  76,  77;  his 
ambition,  77,  78;  burned  to  make 
others  feel  what  he  felt,  79;  the 
results  of  his  struggle,  80,  81 ;  al- 
ways a  Southerner,  80,  81;  his 
poems,  81-83. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  27,  154. 

Leopardi,  Giacomo,  16. 

Letter  to  Teachers  of  American  His- 
tory, A ,  by  Henry  Adams,  48. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  20,  154,  170. 

Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Rail- 
road, the,  132,  133. 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  39;  on  Henry 
Adams,  36. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  lov- 
able and  beloved,  100. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  quoted,  137, 
153,  160. 


247 


INDEX 


Lucretius,  Lanier  compared  to,  69, 

70,  81,  82. 
Lyon,  Mary,  56,  57. 

Macbeth,  Lady,  116. 

McKinley,  President  William,  157, 
164. 

Matthews,  Charles  J.,  206. 

Menpes,  Mortimer,  on  Whistler,  89, 
93,  94,  101,  103. 

Meux,  Lady,  and  Whistler,  98. 

Milnes,  Richard  Monckton,  and 
Henry  Adams,  41. 

Milton,  John,  94;  on  fame,  78. 

Mont-Saint-Michel  and  Chartres,  by 
Henry  Adams,  46,  49,  54. 

Moore,  George,  95,  96. 

More,  Hannah,  209. 

Mulligan,  James,  134. 

Music,  the  art  of  struggle,  72;  de- 
pends on  human  emotion,  107, 
no. 

Nye,  "  Bill,"  218. 

Old  Times  on  the  Mississippi,  3. 

Raphael,  his  friendly  courtesy,  100. 
Republican  party,  principles  of,  1 66. 
Rhodes,  James  Ford,  137. 
Richardson,  James  D.,  168. 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  207,  210,  211. 
Root,  Elihu,  on  Elaine,  129. 
Roughing  It,  3. 

Saint  Ives,  95. 

Schumann,  Robert,  Lanier's  criti- 
cism of,  68,  69. 

Seneca,  quoted,  223. 

Seward,  William  H.,  126,  129,  162. 

Shakespeare,  William,  his  clowns, 
221,  222. 

Shaw,  Mary,  and  Joseph  Jefferson, 
202,  207,  209,  219. 

Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T.,  on  Elaine, 
129. 

Speculation,  two  times  when  a  man 
should  not  venture  on,  7. 


Stanwood,  Edward,  139. 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  22. 
Sumner,  Charles,  34. 
Swift,  Jonathan,  97. 

Teacher,  Henry  Adams's  definition 
of  a,  32,  33;  affects  eternity,  36. 

Ten  O'Clock,  Whistler's,  90,  91. 

Thought,  carnivorous,  69. 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  162. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  176. 

Twain,  Mark,  69,  112,  222;  Chronol- 
ogy, 2;  not  to  be  judged  by  or- 
dinary standards,  3;  his  way  of 
working,  4;  liked  literary  glory,  4, 
10;  something  of  the  bard  about 
him,  4;  essentially  a  journalist,  5; 
his  early  days,  5-7;  walked  the 
city  roofs  with  Artemus  Ward,  6; 
his  energy,  6;  followed  his  fancies, 
6;  wanted  money  for  what  it 
brings,  7, 9 ;  loved  to  take  a  chance, 
7,  9;  a  dreamer,  7,  9,  10,  13;  never 
settled  down,  7;  had  perfect 
health,  8;  made  friends  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men,  8;  his  love 
and  tenderness,  8,  15,  21;  never  a 
good  calculator,  9;  tragedy  and 
disaster,  10,  n;  generally  known 
as  a  laugher,  1 1, 12 ;  was  he  a  great 
humorist,  12,  13,  19;  as  a  thinker, 
13,  14,  16-18;  his  confessions,  15, 
20;  scrupulous  in  financial  rela- 
tions, 15;  had  a  trained  Presby- 
terian conscience,  15;  trusted 
men,  16;  lacked  great  spiritual 
resources,  18;  thoroughly  Ameri- 
can, 19-21;  his  appearance,  20; 
democratic,  21, 22 ;  his  best-known 
books,  22;  his  influence  on  the 
masses,  23,  24;  an  overthrower  of 
shams,  23,  24;  compared  to  Vol- 
taire, 24,  27;  called  a  demolisher 
of  reverence,  24-26;  his  idea  of 
God,  25,  26;  charged  with  evil 
influence,  26,  27;  taken  seriously, 
he  is  desolating,  27,  28;  his  visit  to 
Whistler,  98. 


248 


INDEX 


Twenty  Years  in  Congress,  117. 

Van  Dyke,  John  C.,  on  Whistler, 

100,  104. 

Vasari,  Giorgio,  94,  100. 
Voltaire,  Francois,  97;  Mark  Twain 

compared  to,  24,  27. 

Wagner,  Richard,  218. 

Ward,  Artemus,  and  Mark  Twain,  6. 

Watterson,  Col.  Henry,  164;  on 
Joseph  Jefferson,  200,  213. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  196. 

West,  Andrew  F.,  152. 

Whistler,  James  McNeill,  204;  Chro- 
nology, 86;  a  snarled  soul,  87; 
anecdotes  of,  87,  90,  92,  93,  94, 
96,  98,  103,  104;  his  birth,  88; 
drawing  and  painting  his  only 
serious  business,  88;  apparently 
read  little,  89;  his  attitude  toward 
religion,  90;  his  theories  about  art, 
90,  91;  knew  privation,  91,  92; 
the  centre  of  his  own  universe, 
92,  93;  his  childlikeness,  92-95, 
100,  106;  his  white  lock,  93,  94; 
liked  flattery  and  resented  criti- 


cism, 95 ;  The  Gentle  A  rt  of  Making 
Enemies,  96,  99,  100;  an  undig- 
nified writer,  96,  97;  liked  fighting, 

97,  98 ;  his  revenge  on  Sir  William 
Eden,  98,  99;  the  Peacock  Room, 

98,  107;  contrasted  with  Longfel- 
low and   Raphael,   100;  did  not 
like  to  be  alone,  101;  his  mother 
and  his  wife,  102,  103;  his  art, 
103-10;  his  feeling  about  money, 
104;  could   profit   by   intelligent 
criticism,    104;    a    hard    worker, 
105;  his  instinct  of  truth,    106; 
reveled    in    decorative    richness, 
107;  his  sense  of  mystery,   108, 
III,    112;   influenced  by  Russia, 
109;  did  not  appreciate  nature, 
no. 

White,  Andrew  D.,  on  Elaine,  124. 

Wilde,  Oscar,  and  Whistler,  95,  97. 

Wilson,  Francis,  and  Joseph  Jeffer- 
son, 209,  212,  220,  221. 

Winter,  William,  on  Joseph  Jeffer- 
son, 206,  207,  213,  214,  218,  219. 

Woman,  the  proper  study  of  man- 
kind, 38. 

Wood,  Gen.  Leonard,  154. 


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